César Chávez

I

Introduction

César Chávez (1927-1993), Mexican American labor leader and cofounder of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) labor union. His work gained nationwide attention for migrant farmworkers and helped improve their working and living conditions.

II

Early Life

Chávez was born near Yuma, Arizona. During the Great Depression, his family lost their farm and became migrant farmworkers, moving from one place to another in search of work. Chávez was raised in migrant worker camps and left school after the eighth grade to work in the fields. He joined the U.S. Navy during World War II (1939-1945).

III

Founding of the Union

From 1952 until 1962, Chávez worked for the Community Service Organization, a Latino civil rights group. In 1962 Chávez and Dolores Huerta founded a farmworkers union, known as the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). They hoped to establish a union that would provide field workers with better working and living conditions and change labor laws to give farmworkers more rights. Chávez and Huerta started recruiting members, registering farmworkers to vote, and lobbying for better temporary housing, increased wages, and clean drinking water and field toilets.

IV

Strike for Grape Pickers

In 1965 Chávez led 2,000 NFWA members on a strike in support of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to demand better wages for wine-grape pickers in Delano, California. From the beginning of the strike, Chávez had to improvise tactics to counter the greater power of the growers. In 1966 he led a 547-km (340-mi) march from Delano to the state capital of Sacramento. The march brought national attention to the grape-picker’s strike. Chávez also relied on less conventional methods; he fasted for 25 days to emphasize the nonviolent philosophy of the unions.

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In 1966 the NFWA and the AWOC, while both on strike, merged to create the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) with Chávez as president. The UFWOC became an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). In 1968 Chávez called on consumers nationwide to stop buying table grapes grown in California to put more pressure on the growers. This boycott became one of the most successful in U.S. history. Numerous student groups, churches, and political organizations backed the union, and many California growers were forced to sign union contracts in 1970. During that year, membership in the union increased to 50,000 people. In 1973 the organization changed its name to the United Farm Workers of America.

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