DELANO, Calif. — Over 5,000 workers marched here March 31, demanding rights for immigrant workers and protesting recent deportations and other attacks. Over 30 buses organized by the California Federation of Labor and other unions, as well as other organizations, brought workers from around the state — including Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego — to make clear “an attack on one worker is an attack on all workers. Solidarity is our strength.”
In addition to the United Farm Workers union and a number of county labor federations, contingents included workers in the United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, Teamsters, Service Employees International Union, UNITE HERE, teachers unions, and United Food and Commercial Workers.
The March for All Workers was organized by the United Farm Workers union, which was started here, and held on Cesar Chavez Day, an official holiday in California. Chavez helped start up the UFW, which led battles to organize agricultural workers after its founding in 1962.
The 3-mile march wound through the community and local fields. It followed a similar route as Chavez’s funeral procession in 1994. Delano is in Kern County, where the Border Patrol has recently carried out immigration raids.
Farmworkers in California grow one-third of the country’s vegetables and three-fourths of its fruits and nuts. It is estimated that up to half of California’s farmworkers are undocumented.
Farmworker contingents
Contingents of farmworkers were spread throughout the march. Andrés Cruz García has been a farmworker for 25 years in Monterey County. “Now there is a lot of fear. In Delano there have been deportations. Not in Monterey, but it is only three hours away,” García told the Militant. “I have worked with the union because with the union there are rights and protections, health benefits and better wages.”
All of the farmworkers I talked to pointed to the importance of fighting to have a union. “I have worked four years without a union picking mandarins, garlic and chiles. With the union the pay is better,” Macario Bautista said. “This is my first time participating in a march.”
Felix Rodriguez, 30, a farmworker in Oxnard was marching with his wife and two young children. They both work at a strawberry farm. “They only pay us $2.40 for a flat of strawberries,” he said. “There has been no increase for three years, but the rent and the prices on everything have risen.”
Gabriel Calderon, a shop steward in Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 37, came on one of the buses organized by the Los Angeles Labor Federation. He attended with another co-worker from the bread plant where he has worked for five years.
“I’m here to support immigrants and the farmworkers union through my union, BCTGM,” he said. “My grandfather used to be a farmworker.”
Ramona Partida came to Delano on a bus organized from Los Angeles by UNITE HERE Local 11. “My first job when I came to the U.S. was working three years in the fields. I picked strawberries for $1 for each little box. Many of the bosses yelled and tried to speed us up. They spoke loud and rude, disrespected and humiliated us.
“After moving to Los Angeles, I worked in a car wash and in restaurants, three jobs to survive. I now work in a restaurant in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel,” she said. “UNITE HERE Local 11 is my first union job. I get better wages and benefits because of the union.”
Deborah Liatos is a member of UNITE HERE Local 11. Maggie Trowe contributed to this article.