Chavez Group Marks 25 Years of Supporting Field Laborers : UFW Anniversary Is Grape Boycott Rallying Point

Thousands of farm laborers and their families came to this San Joaquin Valley grape-growing community Saturday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the United Farm Workers, the organization that helped them achieve goals many observers considered unwinnable when the union was founded here in 1962.

“I see how the union transformed my parents’ life into something good when there was nothing before,” said Roberto Delacruz, 41. He said his life as a migrant worker began in this valley when he started picking cotton next to his mother when he was 6 years old.

He said the union’s principal achievement was encouraging field laborers to take pride in their work and giving them dignity on the job.

But Delacruz’s current endeavors illustrate that the union’s battles are far from over. He is the New England regional coordinator of the UFW’s boycott of table grapes, which was launched nearly three years ago and has been slow gathering momentum.

So the union used its anniversary celebration this weekend as much to drum up support for the boycott as to relive past glories and to honor its martyrs and key allies.

A Call From Chavez

“It’s really a call for a mobilization,” said Cesar Chavez, 60, founder and president of the union, who once was described as “a living saint” by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy but denounced as a demagogue for years by agribusiness executives.

Labor leaders from California, Washington, D.C., Canada and Sweden came here to proclaim their support for the grape boycott and to pay tribute to the union’s work.

“The farm workers gave a renewed sense of moral authority to the American labor movement” said Jack Henning, secretary-treasurer of the California Federation of Labor. “We supported their boycotts in the ‘60s and ‘70s and we support them now.”

Tom Donahue, secretary-treasurer of the 13 million-member AFL-CIO said its members “are fully supportive of the boycott.”

“As long as you face injustices, Cesar, your fight will be our fight,” proclaimed Shirley Carr, president of the Canadian Labor Congress, Canada’s equivalent of the AFL-CIO.

Borge Svensson, president of the International Federation of Plantation, Agricultural and Allied Workers, also expressed strong support for the UFW’s current campaign.

A festive atmosphere prevailed on a sunny day at the UFW’s 40-acre headquarters, three miles west of California 99. The predominantly Mexican-American crowd was entertained by mariachi bands and the Teatro Campesino, a theatrical group that used to perform on the back of trucks during strikes and whose director, Luis Valdez, went on to national acclaim with the play “Zoot Suit.”

The throng ate Mexican-style barbecued meat, tortillas, salad and refried beans and sipped beer and soda as they sat under huge white tents or trees.

Membership Declines

The UFW’s current condition, however, is hardly joyous. The membership has declined in recent years, in part because the union was unable to renegotiate contracts with several growers. Then, in January, an Imperial County Superior Court judge ruled that the UFW must pay Maggio Inc., a large Imperial Valley vegetable grower, nearly $1.7 million in damages for losses the judge said Maggio suffered as a result of violence during a 1979 strike.

In order to appeal and prevent Maggio from collecting, the UFW has to post a $3.3-million cash bond. The union has appealed the size of the bond and a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. In court documents filed in March, UFW lawyers asserted that, to put up that much money, the union would have to sell its assets and “for all practical purposes cease operating.”

Union lawyers contend that they have an excellent chance to win, particularly since the decision was rendered by a judge (William E. Lehnhardt) whose wife worked briefly as a non-union packer during the strike. The UFW unsuccessfully attempted to have him disqualified, alleging conflict of interest.

Although the actual anniversary of the union was in March, Chavez decided to hold the celebration in May to coincide with the beginning of the grape harvest in the Coachella Valley. He said that next month the union will increase pressure on stores in eight major markets to stop selling grapes or otherwise face pickets.

Targeted Cities

Chavez said the union also will use a mail, telephone and door-to-door solicitation campaign in those areas to urge consumers to boycott stores that continue to sell grapes. The campaign will be launched in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, four major cities in Texas and Toronto, he said.

The boycott’s goals, Chavez said, are to compel farm owners to stop using five dangerous pesticides on their produce and to agree to a jointly administered spot testing program for pesticides at the marketplace. Chavez also wants growers to reaffirm the right to free union representation elections and good faith collective bargaining.

Twelve years ago, after a decade of strikes and boycotts that created considerable havoc in California agriculture, the state Legislature, prodded by Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., enacted the Agricultural Labor Relations Act. The law for the first time gave farm laborers the right to secret ballot elections to decide which union, if any, should represent them.

Union Won Most Votes

That fall, more than 400 elections were held at individual ranches. The UFW won the vast majority of these elections against the rival Teamsters or the “no union” choice which appeared on each ballot.

However, the union’s organizing efforts waned in the late 1970s and its fortunes really began to sag after George Deukmejian was elected governor in 1982, with heavy support from the state’s agricultural interests. Deukmejian contended that the Agricultural Labor Relations Board’s actions had been unfairly stacked in favor of workers and set out to change the agency. He cut its budget substantially and appointed a conservative Republican legislator, David Stirling, as general counsel.

Prosecution of unfair labor practice charges diminished substantially and, in 1984, Chavez charged that the agency was no longer of any value in helping farm workers secure their rights.

He launched a new boycott, attacking Deukmejian and his farm labor board. In 1985, he shifted the focus to the pesticide issue.

Thus far, the boycott has not had any negative impact on the table grape industry, according to Melissa Hansen, government relations director of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League, a trade association based in Fresno. “Our grapes the last three summers have been marketed without any problems and we have sold record numbers.”

“We’re not hurting the growers economically at this point,” Chavez said in an interview. But he predicted that will start to change this summer.

A Question of Time

“We’re very confident,” Chavez said. “The question isn’t whether we’re going to win. The question is how fast,” he declared.

Dolores Huerta, the UFW’s first vice president, said winning the current boycott will be “an immense task. The growers are more sophisticated now and so are the chain stores. They’ve honed up their weapons to fight us; we’ve got to hone up our weapons.”

Chavez said he was proud of the union’s accomplishments despite the adversity it currently faces. He said that before the union’s first major victories--the signing of contracts with major table grape growers here in 1970--many workers thought “the growers were invincible.”

“The most fundamental change,” he said, was that after the UFW began winning, “people believed it could be done because they saw an example. The other change that came about was that workers got a taste of what it was like to work under union conditions.”

Chavez noted that the UFW established a medical plan for farm workers, pensions, an educational fund, a political fund, and a whole series of working conditions that previously were unheard of in agricultural labor.

These included vacation pay, overtime pay and travel time pay. The UFW also played a key role in securing a ban on the use of the short-handled hoe, a previously commonly used tool that led to many debilitating back injuries. It also constructed housing here--called the Agbayani Village--for elderly Filipino workers, most of whom were unable to bring their wives when they migrated to this country to work in the fields.

A Source of Hope

Chavez also said he was very proud when people “from every walk of life” told him on his travels “that the farm workers gave them the hope that they could succeed and the inspiration to work for change.”

Perhaps the most moving moment of the day came when trees were planted in honor of the union’s “five martyrs”--Nan Freeman, Nadji Daifullah, Juan de la Cruz, Rufino Contreras and Rene Lopez, all of whom were killed during strikes or organizing campaigns. Relatives of all five were here and expressed positive feelings about the UFW.

“I’m grateful the union hasn’t let my son die,” said Dolores Lopez, whose son Rene was shot and killed in a representation election at a dairy farm near Fresno in September, 1984. “He’s still alive for them and he’s still alive for me through the UFW.”

Many of the union’s longtime friends and supporters came here from throughout the state to participate in the festivities. Among them was Fred Ross, a 74-year-old Marin County resident, who discovered Chavez in San Jose and launched him as an organizer.

Republicans Criticized

Conspicuously absent were Marshall Ganz, the union’s former organizing director, and Jerry Cohen, the union’s former general counsel, who left the union in the early 1980s. In recent interviews, both praised the union’s historic role in lifting many farm workers out of poverty but criticized Chavez for failing to try to recruit more members in recent years.

Cohen said Chavez should not blame Deukmejian for all his troubles.

“Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon couldn’t stop this union from organizing before we had a law, and Deukmejian couldn’t either, even though he’s acted as an errand boy for agribusiness,” said Cohen.

But Chavez said it is “impossible” to hold a “free and fair election” in the current political climate.