BY NICK SANDS
WATSONVILLE, California - A crowd of 25,000 farm workers,
trade unionists, and youth marched here April 13 in support of
the United Farm Workers (UFW) effort to organize this state's
20,000 strawberry pickers.
Buses began arriving before dawn in this small city in the heart of California's strawberry fields. Participants were greeted by signs on many lawns saying "Con unión se vive mejor" (With the union we live better). UFW supporters were still arriving at noon as the march, abounded with Mexican flags and UFW banners, stepped off from the local high school and wound its way around town for more than two and a half hours.
The UFW organizes some 26,000 farm workers today. At its peak in the 1970s, the UFW had 80,000 members. The strawberry workers' organizing campaign is a major project of the AFL-CIO.
There are some 270 growers in the nearby Pájaro and Salinas valleys, many of whom have relatively small plots. The union is targeting the large growers, such as the Monsanto-controlled Gargiulo Inc., which has 1,000 workers on its 500 acres. Also targeted are the cooler companies, which control virtually all the marketing for the industry. For several months, the UFW and its supporters have been leafleting supermarkets with the objective of having these markets pressure the growers and the cooler companies to sign contracts with the union.
Thousands of farm workers participated in the April 13 action. Many could easily be identified marching behind UFW banners. Others came alone or in small unidentified groups, and still others stood on their lawns as the march went by, carefully checking it out as they considered whether or not to join the union's organizing effort in the fields. Farm workers also attended from the Yakima Valley in Washington State and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
The average pay for strawberry workers today is $6.25 an hour. In 1985, the average pay was $6.55 an hour. When inflation is factored in, real wages for the pickers have fallen sharply. Manuel Hernández, 22, has picked strawberries for three years in the Salinas-Watsonville area. He told the Militant he is being paid $4.25 an hour. "We need better pay for the hard work we do," said Hernández. Both he and Raúl Montoya, a strawberry worker and member of the UFW for more than 20 years, said the strawberry growers try to intimidate the workers.
"They say there will be no jobs if we go with the union," Montoya emphasized. "The majority are still scared, but today will help show them that we have support. That we don't have to be afraid."
The United Farm Workers is demanding a living wage. The union says a five-cent raise to the workers for every basket of strawberries picked would result in a 50 percent increase in the berry pickers' wages. The UFW is also demanding clean drinking water and bathrooms in the fields, job security, health insurance coverage, and an end to sexual harassment of female farm workers.
The big support that exists among other unionists for the farm workers' fight was reflected in the size of the crowd. The farm workers' struggle is being boosted today as it was in the 1960s and early 1970s by a rise in Chicano and Latino nationalism and is increasingly popular among youth.
The big turnout was also fueled by anger over anti-immigrant moves by the federal and the California state government; by the federal court decision in the week before the march upholding California's anti-affirmative action Proposition 209; and by the California labor board's decision on April 11 to rewrite the rules so that overtime pay does not begin after eight hours on the job, but only after 40 hours have been worked.
Trade union buses were organized to the march from across California, with a particularly big turnout by unions from the Los Angeles area. Other union delegations proudly identified themselves as having come from Montana, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Oklahoma, and other states. Substantial contingents marched behind the banners of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the machinists union, the oil workers, several construction unions, the Teamsters, the Service Employees International Union, the United Auto Workers, the Seafarers, and many others. Nurses from Kaiser hospitals in California, who are organizing a one-day strike on April 16, leafleted the crowd.
Chapters of MEChA - the Chicano Student Movement of Atzlán - from California and other states organized buses and carried their banners in the march. "I wanted to be part of history being made right now," Rafael Nolasco, 19, from the University of California at Irvine explained.
As the march stepped off, a group of Aztec dancers broke out in front of the throng and made their way down the street to cheers from many gathered on the sidewalks.
Immigrant rights organizations were prominent in the march. Many political groups also participated. Applause went up along the route when a handful of banners went by reflecting NAACP chapters. Also welcomed by the crowd were activists from the Irish-American Unity Conference, who brought along an Irish bagpipe troupe. These activists campaigned at the demonstration for freedom for Róisín McAliskey, an Irish political activist imprisoned in Britain and fighting extradition to Germany. Several top union officials were at the front of the march, including AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, UFW president and vice president Arturo Rodríguez and Dolores Huerta, and others, along with Democratic Party politician Jesse Jackson.
Also carrying banners were the Green Party, Democratic Socialists of America, International Socialists Organization, the Labor Party, and others. The Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialists carried a banner that read in English and Spanish, "Support the strawberry workers. Equal rights for Immigrants. Defend the Cuban Revolution."
A few rightists intervened in the day's activities. Several supporters of fascist Lyndon LaRouche handed out copies of the New Federalist newspaper and other material. A small group of right-wingers led by local radio talk show host Rob Roberts backed the growers and heckled the march chanting, "Labor unions go home."
The growers have formed an organization dubbed the Strawberry Workers and Farmers Alliance to counter the UFW. The SWFA claims to have a membership of over 6,000, most of whom they say are strawberry workers.
With the strawberry season just getting under way, and building on the momentum generated by the huge outpouring of support, the UFW is sending several dozen organizers into the fields to sign up new members.
Watsonville Marchers Snap Up Socialist Press
Socialist workers from California, Washington state, New
York, New Jersey, and Minnesota had a big day selling
revolutionary literature at the April 13 Watsonville march.
A total of 123 books and pamphlets were sold to march participants. This included 15 copies of the Marxist magazine New International in English and Spanish. Books and pamphlets on the Cuban revolution were also among the most popular titles. A Teamster union member from Wisconsin stopped at a table staffed by socialist trade unionists from Los Angeles and bought all four volumes of the Teamster series by Farrell Dobbs and the Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions by Jack Barnes.
Socialists sold 32 subscriptions to the Militant at the event along with 31 subscriptions to the Spanish-language monthly Perspectiva Mundial. More than 150 single copies of the Militant were also sold to march participants.
Fifty people attended an open house after the march and rally hosted by the Young Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party. The more than 20 youth who attended came from several California cities and from Washington state. Craig Honts, who was the Socialist Workers Party candidate for mayor of Los Angeles in the recent election, and Paul Pederson from the Young Socialists in St. Paul, Minnesota, urged all who attended to join the socialist movement.