A Frontier for Workers’ Rights: The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott
Laborers' Perspective
The strike received national solidarity from students, labor unions, religious organizations, and civil rights activists. Immigrant farm workers saw the strike as an opportunity to improve their lives in agriculture. The NAACP and students from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) recognized how the struggle for workers' rights was part of a broader struggle for social justice, which they supported through advocacy work in the civil rights movement.
Poster protesting the arrest of Cesar Chavez, Digital Public Library of America, 1970
NAACP flyer, Digital Public Library of America, 1965
"He [Chavez] asked me to coordinate the first farmworker boycott, targeted at Schenley Liquor. I was honored to be asked and willing to do it. I told Chavez I had to get approval from SNCC to put time into this activity. SNCC readily gave me that approval...SNCC and SDS continued to provide support for the emerging United Farm Workers Organizing Committee" ~Mike Miller, SNCC organizer, "The Farmworkers and Their Allies In the Early to Mid-1960s," circa 2000
Grape Growers' Perspective
The strike happened during the Cold War, so grape growers accused the UFW of being communist because of Chavez's involvement with left-wing organizations. Additionally, growers argued workers’ demands, like better wages and working conditions, were "un-American" and socialist. In short, they saw the strike as an attempt to overthrow American capitalism.
FBI investigation of Cesar Chavez and NFWA based on communist allegations, 1965.
“Everywhere I went to organize they would bluntly ask: 'Are you a Communist?’
I would answer: ‘No.’
‘How do we know?’
‘You don’t know. You know because I tell you.’”
~ Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa, 1975
"Chavez refuses to ansewer any questionnaires directed to him by Credit Bureaus or similar organizations. He has openly been called a Communist at Delano City Council meetings...Chavez associates with 'left wing' type individuals" ~FBI investigation of Cesar Chavez and NFWA based on communist allegations, 1965
Other growers characterized the UFW as disruptive to the argibusiness, resorting to violence to break the strike.
"He can boycott and do all he wants to do, but I don't think the growers will ever sign with him again." ~ John J. Giumarra, operator of the largest grape‐growing company in Delano, New York Times, 1973
"Giumarra vineyards have been a particular target of the farm union pickets. Still Mr. Giumarra said he was getting in his harvest. He said that to protect his workers he had already hired some armed guards and that he would take on more if necessary. Statements by the growers that they will never again sign with the farm union, along with the teamsters’ insistence on getting those contracts tend to show the depth of this dispute." ~ Earl Caldwell, New York Times, 1973
Police and Teamster violence against UFW strikers, Farmworker Movement Documentaiton Project, University of California San Diego Library, 1973
Teamster anti UFW posters, Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, University of California San Diego Library, circa 1970
Teamster anti UFW posters, Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, University of California San Diego Library, circa 1970
"UFW pickes use tactics of threat, fear, and intimidation against non-union workers in the vield, and have damaged and destroyed property of the growers...Jose Montenegro, farm worker and ex-union official said: 'Organizing is really a tactic of intimidation, violence and threats'" ~ The Truth Squad of the Arizona Ecumenical Council, study between UFW and growers, 1972
