Vol. 79/No. 38      October 26, 2015

“I was a striker and later a boycotter,” Tillie Ahumada told the Militant. After going on strike in 1965, she and her husband traveled to Montreal where they organized support for the international boycott of table grapes that helped force the growers to sign contracts with the union in 1970.

Adequate water, shade and bathroom facilities in the fields were key demands along with higher pay and a union contract. “What broke the camel’s back for me,” Ahumada said, “was when we were forced to work with the plants still dripping with pesticide spray.”

Recognition was given to the 1,000 Filipino farmworkers from the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee who were the first to go on strike over the growers’ refusal to grant higher wages. Members of the mostly Latino National Farm Workers Association, led by Cesar Chavez, joined the strike and in 1966 the two groups merged to form the United Farm Workers union.

“The farmers had always played the Filipino and Mexican workers against each other,” Lorraine Agtang, who at the age of 13 was one of the 1965 strikers along with her parents, told the gathering. “The UFW was successful because the Mexicans and Filipinos united.”

“We ate together and met in the Filipino center,” said striker Mary Herrera. “Unity was important.”

The daylong event included speeches by UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta, Robert Kennedy Jr., and activists in the strike and boycott, as well as a display of photos.

“We made history,” said Roberto Bustos, who began working in the fields at age 10. He was an organizer of the 340-mile march by farmworkers from Delano to the state Capitol in Sacramento in 1966 that brought national attention to the struggle.

Rodriguez introduced representatives from some of the ranches currently organized by the UFW. They included workers at Dole Food, one of the largest strawberry growers; D’Arrigo Brothers, a giant lettuce and vegetable company; and workers who are part of the fight for a contract at Gerawan Farming, a tree fruit and grape company that employs 5,000 workers.

“The most important thing for us is the respect and dignity we get with a union contract,” said mushroom worker Rogelio Lona, secretary general of the union ranch committee at Monterey Mushroom in Morgan Hill. Lona described wage increases, dental, vision and medical plans won by mushroom workers over decades of struggle, including a 96-day strike in 1981.

Tomato picker Florentino Reyes represented 170 workers who carried out a two-day strike at Gargiulo Inc. in Firebaugh in 2012, winning union recognition and a contract. Since 2012 workers at four companies with a total of 1,500 employees, mostly tomato pickers, have won union contracts in the San Joaquin Valley.
 
 
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