Target Is Governor : The Boycott: Chavez Gets a Slow Start

In a print shop at United Farmworkers Union headquarters near Bakersfield, computerized mailing equipment is spewing out thousands of letters daily, each carrying the simple message: “Boycott California table grapes.”

This direct-mail campaign is the centerpiece of UFW leader Cesar Chavez’s latest crusade, aimed at the Administration of Republican Gov. George Deukmejian and using the boycott strategy that once served Chavez and the cause of farm workers so well.

Two decades ago, millions of Americans supported the first grape boycott, stirred by prayer vigils, mass demonstrations and long fasts by Chavez that focused attention on farm workers’ poverty. The boycott’s success helped him create the nation’s first viable farm labor union.

Dormant Until Recently

Much is different about Chavez’s newest boycott, announced a year ago but dormant until the last few months.

Its heavy reliance on direct mail (20 million to 30 million letters to potential supporters) seems to recognize that this is a new, more conservative era, that the union would have difficulty winning today with the tactics it employed in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Moreover, Chavez and the union must explain that the grape growers are not, in fact, the primary target. They were chosen to help revive memories of the earlier, successful boycott.

This time, the union leader said, the prime target is Deukmejian. Chavez declared that Deukmejian’s Administration is out to help growers destroy his union and halt enforcement of the state’s farm labor law. He calls the governor “that enemy of farm workers.”

Vigorous Enforcement

Chavez said he expects his boycott to put such pressure on growers that they not only will sign new UFW contracts but that they will also demand that Deukmejian, their political ally, more vigorously enforce the farm labor law.

Most growers express outward confidence that Chavez cannot succeed this time. Ed Thomas, head of a committee representing grape growers in the Delano area, said that although Chavez “is still something of a folk hero, his quarrel is with the governor, not growers, and the public will not go along with that.”

Even some of Chavez’s most ardent followers wonder if a boycott makes sense. Organizations like the Catholic Church that were important allies two decades ago have not rushed to join Chavez in this campaign, and some political figures who might be expected to help have been similarly slow to declare their support.

The first boycott went five years before it could be called a success, however, and Chavez said he is prepared to go that distance again if necessary. He said he senses victory once more.

If he is wrong, the still-struggling UFW, stung in recent years by a decline in membership and bitter internal disputes, could be further weakened. And the long-range goal of Chavez and his supporters, the development of a nationwide union of farm workers, could be severely damaged.

Chavez admitted this possibility. “It is a risk,” he said, “but the moment you stop taking risks, you are dead.”

Almost gone are the memories of those dramatic scenes in the mid-1960s and early ‘70s:

Chavez, weakened by weeks of fasting, lying on a cot in a small house in Delano, pleading for support of the farm workers. Chavez leading his followers on long protest marches along hot, dusty farm roads--marches that sometimes ended in violent confrontation with growers or the Teamsters, then the growers’ allies.

Often, the Chavistas were photographed kneeling in the dirt in prayer, in vivid contrast to their fist-waving foes standing muscularly tall across the road and cursing. Their prayers quite likely were sincere. But it was also excellent showmanship, and it won them increasing public support.

Growers complained that the Chavistas were more social crusaders than unionists. That was, in a real sense, true. After all, Chavez and his staff acted then, and still act, as if they have taken personal vows of poverty. And back then, they seemed to know little about the business of negotiating labor contracts.

Chavez was 38 when that began. Now he is 58. His brown face, which resembles that of an American Indian, is still almost unlined even though his black hair is streaked with gray and his paunch is slightly larger.

Refuses to Wear a Tie

He wears work clothes almost like a uniform, refusing to put on a tie even for the most elaborate occasions. His clothing makes him stand out clearly in all but a crowd of farm workers.

He lives with his wife, Helen, in a small cottage in La Paz, the union’s isolated headquarters in the community of Keene, about 30 miles from Bakersfield in the Tehachapi mountains. La Paz consists of a few buildings, house trailers for staffers and their families and some small cottages like the one used by Chavez and his wife.

Neither Chavez nor his staffers receive regular salaries, although the union provides their basic needs in clothing, housing, food and travel expenses.

Chavez still sleeps only about four hours a day, meditates an hour or more almost daily and attends Mass regularly. He remains a vegetarian, an admirer of the late Mahatma Gandhi and an energetic, charismatic figure.

His great personal appeal was demonstrated earlier this year, when Chavez stopped off in Boston on a trip East to promote his latest boycott.

Franciscan Support

He stayed at a Franciscan monastery, where he explained over breakfast why he thinks the boycott is necessary; many of the sympathetic friars gave the UFW donations ranging up to $500 and pledged their support.

He visited with Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, who embraced Chavez and also promised support, as did the City Council. Flynn’s aides, not usually impressed by celebrities, left their inner offices to see Chavez and praise him. Later, he was guest of honor at a reception given by Massachusetts state senators who support the boycott. Television and newspaper reporters flocked to interview him.

On the streets, ordinary citizens smiled broadly when they recognized Chavez and many, like Joe Mitchell, stopped to say hello.

Mitchell, smartly dressed in a blue, well-pressed business suit and brightly shined shoes, is a one-time college activist--just the sort of person Chavez thinks will provide critical support for the new boycott.

‘A Wonderful Person’

Thrusting out his hand to clasp Chavez’s, Mitchell said, “You don’t know me, Mr. Chavez, but I know you and I want to say you are a wonderful person and I’m honored just to be able to shake your hand.”

Chavez was pleased.

“You see,” he said, grinning as Mitchell hurried away, “the people who supported us before are still there. Some of them have now grown up, and we won’t ask them to join our picket lines this time, but they will respond to our call for the boycott.”

(The Boston trip was not the only illustration of Chavez’s continuing personal appeal. A Mervin Field California poll in February gave Chavez a 53% favorable rating against 21% unfavorable, better than most politicians score in such surveys.)

But personal appeal does not always work for Chavez, particularly among those who see a deep-rooted, almost sinister reason behind his call for a new boycott. They argue that it is Chavez himself who is in trouble and that his complaint that Deukmejian is scuttling the farm labor law is a smoke screen to hide the UFW’s many problems.

That such skepticism exists is not surprising, considering all that has happened to the UFW since the mid-1970s.

Immediately after the growers bowed to the first boycott in 1970 and recognized the UFW, the union’s active membership soared to almost 80,000 and it had contracts with practically every table grape grower in California.

In 1973, however, the grape growers formed what Chavez called “an unholy alliance” with the Teamsters. The growers said they would no longer deal with the UFW; instead, they unilaterally ended their contracts with the UFW and recognized the Teamsters as bargaining agent for the workers in their fields.

The move, legal at the time, sent UFW membership plunging below 3,000. Many thought the union was finished. Chavez’s followers retaliated with picket lines and mass demonstrations.

These sometimes bloody encounters between the Chavistas and the grower-Teamsters won renewed public sympathy for the UFW. And they helped prod the Legislature into passing in 1975 the historic farm labor law, the first in the nation.

The law requires government-conducted elections in which the workers, not the growers, decide which union represents them. It also prohibits growers from firing workers who are union sympathizers.

The UFW won most of the early elections, and the Teamsters eventually bowed out of the contest.

Even with the fields all to itself, however, the UFW today can claim no more than 30,000 to 40,000 active members--about 10% of all farm workers in the state and fewer than 3% of the grape workers. It has fewer than 200 contracts with growers statewide and only three with grape growers. In contrast, at its peak the union counted more than 50 grape growers under contract and more than 400 contracts overall.

Grower’s Criticism

(Most of the remaining union grape workers are employed by one company, the Coachella-based Freedman Corp. headed by Lionel Steinberg, first grape grower to sign a UFW contract in 1970. The length of that relationship might seem a good omen for grower-union harmony. In fact, however, Steinberg is a union critic who complains that although he makes a profit, he has higher labor costs than his non-union competitors. The difference, he said, is not only in wages but also work rules and grievance procedures that hurt productivity.)

At the same time, the UFW has been racked by internal disputes that have seen some of its best and brightest--Jerry Cohen, a labor attorney; Marshal Ganz, the union’s dynamic chief organizer, and Gilbert Padilla, one of its founders--leave the union.

Chavez said they left the union of their own accord. Padilla, now selling insurance in Fresno, said, “That’s bunk. We did resign, but Chavez forced us out. I was in tears when I left.

“Cesar doesn’t know how to delegate authority and became almost paranoid when others exercised some leadership. He suspected Communists were out to destroy the union and drove out some of our best people, who were surely not Communists. He engaged in the worst sort of Red-baiting.”

Argument Taken to Court

Adding to Chavez’s problems is a bitter struggle between some dissident local union leaders and top UFW officers. The dissidents say Chavez deprived them of their rights in a union election in 1981, and there is no end in sight to that argument, still going on in the courts.

While the UFW infighting has raged, the growers have been adopting more sophisticated tactics, hiring legal experts who stymie union actions by their maneuvering before the farm labor board or in the courts.

Finally, said Don Curlee, a grower spokesman, the UFW is not doing well these days because “it is doing a lousy organizing job among workers.”

To Chavez, however, there is another explanation: the Deukmejian Administration.

Deukmejian’s allies say Chavez is upset simply because farm labor officials are no longer giving workers an unfair edge in disputes with growers, which they say was the case when Democratic Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. was in office.

“All we are doing is to make the law a neutral one and not biased in favor of either growers or farm workers,” David Stirling, the farm labor board’s general counsel, has insisted.

Stirling is at the center of the dispute. Although the five-member farm labor board is still controlled by a majority of Brown appointees serving out their terms, Stirling is a Deukmejian appointee, named to the important post of general counsel in 1983.

As such, Stirling must decide which of the workers’ complaints filed against growers are worth submitting to the farm labor board for a ruling. It is a critical point in the process, and the UFW does not like Stirling’s record thus far: He has submitted about 10% of all worker charges to the full board. Under the Brown Administration, about 35% of workers’ charges against growers were deemed sufficiently valid to be submitted to the full board for a decision.

$40 Million in Back Pay

The union also is infuriated by the pace at which growers are paying back wages and other penalties awarded to workers who win cases brought before the farm labor board. Growers owe farm workers an estimated $40 million in such payments, but less than $2 million has been paid. Legal appeals have caused much of the delay, and the problem predates the Deukmejian Administration, but the union argues that Stirling is doing nothing to speed up the process.

A particularly angry battle has been waged over Stirling’s decision to allow attorneys for growers to examine the files of farm labor board investigators. The UFW said it feared that complaining workers, who often speak to investigators on a confidential basis, might suffer retaliation if their names are taken from the files and given to growers.

Stirling said the attorneys have a legal right to the files and have assured him that they are doing routine legal research on pending cases and will not copy or make use of any confidential statements made by workers.

Stirling’s action drew criticism from some farm labor board members and from Democratic legislators, who threatened financial retaliation if Stirling did not take a tougher stance on behalf of farm workers. Democratic Floor Leader Mike Roos of Los Angeles charged that Stirling is “not upholding the law.”

‘Risk Punitive Actions’

Stirling also has come under attack from some of his own staff, including several aides he hired.

Nine of 11 professional employees in the farm labor board’s Salinas regional office, for example, signed a petition saying, among other things, that they were being punished for their “efforts to carry out the law. We know as long as we continue to do our job in a diligent manner, we risk punitive actions for disloyalty (to the Deukmejian Administration).”

Besides appointing Stirling, Deukmejian has angered the UFW by cutting the farm labor board’s budget by a third, leaving fewer agents to investigate complaints filed by workers.

And by next year, the Brown appointees will be gone, giving Deukmejian full control over the board. Then, as the UFW sees it, the few workers’ complaints that manage to get past the general counsel will come up against a board far more conservative and far less inclined to rule in favor of the workers.

The letter, attributed to farm worker Manuel Amaya, begins:

“Dear Friend:

“You know how it is. You give the company the best years of your life. And when you are in need they do not listen. My oldest child writes this letter to you because I cannot. My right hand was lost to infection from the poisons in the fields where I worked. . . .”

It ends by asking the recipient to “please mail to Cesar Chavez the post card (offering support to farm workers) I have sent to you. It lets us know that people in America care.”

Paul Chavez, head of the UFW’s print shop and son of Cesar Chavez, said the union has mailed more than 4.5 million letters like this, asking support for its grape boycott. The return mail has brought about $700,000 in donations, all of it to pay for more mailings, he said.

It is the kind of massive direct-mail campaign that seems to work so well for many enterprising businesses, conservative causes and fundamentalist religious leaders. The elder Chavez expressed confidence that it will do the same for his grape boycott and calls it “using the miracles of high tech.”

‘Smoke and Mirrors’

Yet skeptics abound, and one of them is Marshall Ganz, a UFW founder and veteran of the first grape boycott, who left the union three years ago.

“The earlier boycott was made to work by people profoundly committed to it,” Ganz said. “There were real people working on it full time in cities around the world, and it wasn’t a PR (public relations) trick.

“It was not some mystical power of Chavez behind it, but dedicated people, including him, working their butts off because it was a cause they believed in. Now they are trying to create the boycott with smoke and mirrors, with words, not substance.”

The first grape boycott took on an almost religious aura because of the heavy support from so many major religious groups. Two decades later, that kind of support is proving slow to develop.

‘Very Good Person’

New Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony, one of the many Catholic church officials who worked closely with the union in its early days, praised Chavez as “a very good person, very dedicated,” but said he does not “subscribe to the boycott strategy” today.

Mahony, the former bishop of Stockton, said the original boycott gained support because farm workers were without legal protection. “Now,” he said, “they have such a law in California and the issue is its effectiveness, not its existence.”

Msgr. George Higgins, another Catholic leader and longtime union supporter, gave yet another indication of the problem facing the union when he said in response to a question: “I did see something about the new boycott, but I don’t hear about it much and haven’t seen any articles on the union for several months.”

Higgins was an active participant from the start in that first grower-union fight, and his lack of intimate involvement by now, nearly a year after the start of the new boycott, helps define the distance that the UFW campaign has yet to cover.

Although formal support from religious groups has been relatively slow in coming, a number of religious organizations and leaders have given their blessings to the new boycott.

The 1,500-member Central Conference of American Rabbis, which represents rabbinical leaders of congregations with more than more than 1.2 million reform Jewish members throughout the United States and Canada, has called on all Jews to stop buying non-union California table grapes.

The National Council of Churches has met at least once with Chavez but as yet has said nothing official about its intentions of supporting the boycott.

That may change in the coming weeks. The United Church of Christ recently urged its 1.7 million members to join the boycott, taking the action at the church’s general synod in Ames, Iowa. Chavez predicts that more large church groups will soon take similar action.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has joined city officials in Boston, Detroit, Cleveland and other large communities in endorsing the union’s boycott.

Less Political Support

Politicians provided important support two decades ago, but despite some initial successes, such support seems a less promising prospect for Chavez today.

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who marched with Chavez in massive demonstrations, has been dead for more than 17 years, slain by an assassin.

Former Gov. Brown, a firm ally of the Chavistas during his eight years in office, was replaced in Sacramento in 1983 by Deukmejian.

President Ronald Reagan left no doubt about his sympathies when he made a public point of eating California table grapes during the last boycott.

Even state Senate Pro Tem President David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), still one of the strongest supporters of the farm workers, said that although he “may well end up backing the boycott, I am not sure about it yet.”

Chavez said he realizes that the UFW will not get the same massive support it won during the first boycott: A Lou Harris poll then showed that nearly 17 million Americans joined, plus an unknown number in other countries.

He also said, however, that he does not need those numbers, that if just 3 million consumers among what he calls his “natural constituency” stop purchasing grapes, the growers will give in. This, he said, is because grape growers, operating on a tight profit margin and aware of the boycott’s potential strength, will react more quickly than in the past.

Most growers scoff at such calculations. Ed Thomas, the grower representative in Delano, said that the boycott has not made even a slight dent in table grape sales so far and that he doubts that it ever will.

Not all growers are so sanguine.

In 1979, the UFW mounted a successful boycott against a lettuce grower, the Bruce Church Co. UFW officials said their key weapon was a direct-mail campaign similar to that now being used in the grape boycott. Union computers, they said, have the ability to direct mailings into areas where residents are most likely to support the boycott, thus assuring that individual supermarkets will feel the effect.

‘High-Tech Boycott’

Growers denounced the 1979 lettuce boycott tactics as “extortion.” One Bruce Church official said in a trade magazine, however, that more than a dozen major retailers had stopped buying his company’s product because of the “threat of the commencement of a so-called high-tech boycott.”

It is too early to tell what success Chavez will have this time around, and even he admits that.

Nor will he leave it all to direct mail. He will visit every major American city, and he is planning a trip to Western Europe later this year to seek support for the boycott. Chavez and his union followers have started holding demonstrations and marches across California’s farmlands.

And at least one former aide cautioned against prematurely counting Chavez out.

Mark Grossman, who was press secretary for Chavez, said: “One reason he is one of the few surviving leaders of the social movements of the 1960s is that he has never been afraid to discard or modify old concepts, old ways of doing things, whether or not they were his own ideas.”