Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a reflection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opinion on the below topics.
By Talia Lunken
The farm production system in California has heavily relied on employing low-wage laborers since the early 1900s, in part as a result of the Bracero Program.[1] This program started as an informal agreement between the United States and Mexican governments during WWII as a way for Mexican agricultural workers to take up the slack of American farm workers who had left for military service. By providing replacements for striking workers and cheap labor, the program could be seen as a direct threat to unionization efforts. The Bracero Program became Public Law 78 in 1951 and was phased out by 1964 after farmworkers called upon allies in churches, unions, and community groups connected with the civil rights movement to put pressure on politicians.[2]
The conditions of grape workers in 1965 were grave. They made an average of $1.20 an hour and 10 cents for each lug (28-pound basket) they picked. Workers were not supplied with restrooms or clean water. Temporary housing for workers consisted of unheated metal shacks without indoor plumbing or cooking facilities, and were infested with mosquitoes. Room and board were deducted from workers’ pay and cost $2 or more per day.[3] Eight out of ten farmworker families were earning an annual income below the federal poverty level of $3,100. They could also expect to live an average of 46 years compared to 69 to 76 for the general population.[4]
Around this time, in 1962, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, Gilbert Padilla, and various others started the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).[6] Cesar Chavez was the national director of the Community Services Organization (CSO) and had become frustrated with the refusal of the rest of the CSO to allow a pilot program to organize farmworkers to move forward. He ended up leaving to found the NFWA alongside Dolores Huerta. She was doing the same work in the northern valley counties and was the secretary-treasurer of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). Dolores Huerta left AWOC due to differences in approach to organizing. She believed organizing meant talking to workers, whereas AWOC was organizing labor contractors and the middlemen.[7]
On September 8, 1965, more than 800 Filipino farmworkers with the AWOC went on strike at ten grape vineyards throughout Delano. They were demanding a raise in hourly wages from $1.25 to $1.40 and an increase from ten cents a box to twenty-five cents a box for grapes picked. AWOC had won similar conditions in the Coachella Valley just months earlier. The NFWA leadership didn’t feel they were ready for the strike, as the organization was just three years old and unsure if they had the necessary resources to commit to the strike. Despite these reservations, about a week after the start of the strike, the leadership met for a vote, leading to overwhelming support for the strike. Within just a few days, NFWA was picketing ten additional vineyards in addition to the original sites.[9]
In December of 1965, the NFWA called for their first consumer boycott. The target was Scheneley Industries, the second largest grower in Delano and a nationally known company. Picketing began at businesses such as grocery stores, bars, liquor stores, and other places that sold Schenley products. They also appealed to other unions like hotel and restaurant workers, leading to a drop in sales by April 1966.[10] Soon after the strike began, Schenley sprayed those striking with fertilizer and insecticide.[11] They also boycotted Di Giorgio Corporation, the largest employer of agricultural workers in Delano in the 1960s. By boycotting Di Giorgio and Schenley’s most lucrative products, the farmworkers had a larger impact than just abstaining from work, as most of the annual revenue came from juices, canned foods, and alcoholic beverages, and not from farming.[12][13]
To bring Schenley Industries and Di Giorgio Corporation to the negotiation table, another innovative action was taken. NFWA and AWOC organized a march from Delano to the capital city, Sacramento, over 300 miles in 25 days.[15] On March 17, 1966, 70 strikers led by Chavez set out.[16] The slogan of the march was “Peregrinacion, Penitencia, Revolution,” which means “Pilgrimage, Penitence, Revolution.”[17] Throughout the march, they picked up hundreds and rallied thousands of supporters.[18] The march demonstrated the grassroots base that was the foundation of the movement.[19] When they arrived at the capital, they were met with over 10,000 supporters, and Dolores Huerta announced Schenly had signed an agreement (negotiated by her).[20] The contract with Schenley “included a wage increase (to a minimum of $1.75 an hour), a pledge of no strikes and no lockouts for the term of the agreement, a union hiring hall, a union shop, checkoff of union dues, reporting and standby pay, and paid vacations.”[21] This marked a significant time in labor history as it was the first successful union contract achieved through striking.[22]
Within weeks of Schenely’s agreement, Di Giorgio agreed to hold a representative election. In an effort to consolidate strength, NFWA and AWOC formally merged before the Di Giorgio election, becoming the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), which would later be renamed the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).[23] Di Giorgio lost the election, and the UFW won the right to represent field workers.[24] After seven months of negotiation with Di Girogio, the agreement ended with “union shop, a new base rate of $1.65 per hour, a week’s paid vacation for workers employed at least forty weeks per year, and reporting and standby pay if no work was available.”[25] After seeing the largest employer lose the election, other Delano growers followed suit and signed with the UFW.[26] The UFW became the first agricultural union in the US to obtain both recognition and contracts with major employers through striking.[27] On March 1, 1968, contracts were signed with ten growers: “Schenley Industries, Di Giorgio Fruit Corp., E. and J. Gallo Winery, Christian Brothers Winery, the Goldberg Ranch, Almadén Vineyards, Paul Masson Vineyards, Novitiate, Perelli-Minetti and Sons, and Franzia.”[28]
Today, the United Farm Workers of America is still the country’s longest enduring farm worker union. The UFW continues to win victories for farm workers in agricultural industries throughout the United States.[29]
[1]Muralles, Yelena. “The Farm Workers Are Building a Monument- Their Union; A Look into the Jon Lewis Photographs of the United Farm Workers Movement.” Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, July 20, 2022. https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/article/farm-workers-are-building-monument-their-union-look-jon-lewis-photographs-united-farm.
[2]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Street, Richard Steven. “Delano Diary: The Visual Adventure and Social Documentary Work of Jon Lewis, Photographer of the Delano, California Grape Strike, 1966-1970.” Southern California Quarterly 91, no. 2 (2009): 191–235. https://doi.org/10.2307/41172470.
[5]Jon Lewis, Farm Worker Housing, 1966, From the Collection: Lewis, Jon, 1938-2009, Box 47, Folder 95, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Connecticut.
[6]“United Farm Workers of America.” NFWM, June 2018. https://nfwm.org/farm-workers/farmworker -partners/united-farm-workers-of-america/.
[7]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[8]Jon Lewis, Picketing I, 1966, From the Collection: Lewis, Jon, 1938-2009, Box 4, Folder 26, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Connecticut.
[9]“Workers United: The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, March 20, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/workers-united-the-delano-grape-strike-and -boycott.htm.
[10]Ibid.
[11]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[12]Lamoree, Elizabeth. “Gambling on Grapes: Management, Marketing, and Labor in California Agribusiness.” Agricultural History 86, no. 3 (2012): 104–27. https://doi.org/10.3098/ah.2012.86.3.104.
[13]Garcia, Matt. “A Moveable Feast: The UFW Grape Boycott and Farm Worker Justice.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 83 (2013): 146–53. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43302714.
[14]Holmes, Todd. “The Swing of the Political Pendulum: Congressman John Moss, the Democratic Party, and the United Farm Workers’ Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970.” Southern California Quarterly 88, no. 3 (2006): 295–338. https://doi.org/10.2307/41172326.
[15]Street, Richard Steven. “Delano Diary: The Visual Adventure and Social Documentary Work of Jon Lewis, Photographer of the Delano, California Grape Strike, 1966-1970.” Southern California Quarterly 91, no. 2 (2009): 191–235. https://doi.org/10.2307/41172470.
[16]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[17]Wells, Ronald A. “Cesar Chavez’s Protestant Allies: The California Migrant Ministry and the Farm Workers.” The Journal of Presbyterian History (1997-) 87, no. 1 (2009): 5–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23338055.
[18]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[19]Holmes, Todd. “The Swing of the Political Pendulum: Congressman John Moss, the Democratic Party, and the United Farm Workers’ Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970.” Southern California Quarterly 88, no. 3 (2006): 295–338. https://doi.org/10.2307/41172326.
[20]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.Within30.
[21]Cohen, Irving J. “La Huelga! Delano and After.” Monthly Labor Review 91, no. 6 (1968): 13–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41837326.
[22]Ibid.
[23]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[24]Lamoree, Elizabeth. “Gambling on Grapes: Management, Marketing, and Labor in California Agribusiness.” Agricultural History 86, no. 3 (2012): 104–27. https://doi.org/10.3098/ah.2012.86.3.104.
[25]Glass, Fred B. “‘Sí Se Puede’: THE UNITED FARM WORKERS.” In From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement, 1st ed., 332–47. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxsfk.30.
[26]Lamoree, Elizabeth. “Gambling on Grapes: Management, Marketing, and Labor in California Agribusiness.” Agricultural History 86, no. 3 (2012): 104–27. https://doi.org/10.3098/ah.2012.86.3.104.
[27]Cohen, Irving J. “La Huelga! Delano and After.” Monthly Labor Review 91, no. 6 (1968): 13–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41837326.
[28]Ibid.
[29]“United Farm Workers of America.” NFWM, June 2018. https://nfwm.org/farm-workers/farmworker -partners/united-farm-workers-of-america/.