On Cesar Chavez’s birthday, Sonoma County farmworkers still see need for improved conditions
On a rainy day in Santa Rosa, Sandra De Leon recounted the positive changes farmworkers have experienced as a result of the efforts of the late Cesar Chavez, a civil rights leader who, along with fellow labor activist Dolores Huerta, fought to improve conditions for agricultural workers.
“Right now the farmworkers have bathrooms. We have water. They give us clean water, that is provided to us. Shade is provided for us in hot weather,” she said.
Friday marks what would have been Chavez’s 96th birthday and culminates National Farmworker Awareness Week, which is meant to honor the contributions of farmworkers to our nation’s food industry and raise awareness about the issues they still face.
Though conditions have improved and inroads to culturally relevant health care are now available in Sonoma County, local farmworkers such as De Leon and other advocates say they are still fighting for continued improvements, such as protections in the event of a hazardous or disastrous event.
“There are still irregularities because sometimes the shade is very far from where we are working. Same with water. There are times when the water is not as close as we would like," she said.
De Leon is one of roughly 8,500 farmworkers in Sonoma County. Of that amount, more than 400 are current members of the United Farm Workers, the union co-founded by Chavez, which grew from his and others’ efforts during the 1960s.
Currently, four companies have union representation in Sonoma County: Balleto Vineyards, CK Mondavi, St. Supéry Estate Vineyards and Winery and E.& J. Gallo Winery, according to Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for United Farm Workers, which is based in Keene, California.
Who was he?
Born on March 31, 1927, outside of Yuma, Arizona, to migrant laborers, Chavez grew up on his family’s farm until they lost the property in the Great Depression and had to become migrant farmworkers.
After the eighth grade, Chavez joined his family as a migrant farmworker throughout California.
Critical to understanding Chavez’s work is the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which allowed for employees to organize at work nationwide – except for farmworkers, who were excluded from the act. To this day, farmworkers are still not allowed to unionize at a national level.
Starting in 1952, Chavez began to organize other farmworkers and was trained by community organizer Fredd Ross who also established the San Jose chapter of the Community Service Organization, a Latino civil rights organization based in Los Angeles.
Ten years later in Delano, California, Chavez, Huerta and other activists established the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America.
The tactics he and other farmworkers and organizers employed in order to establish protections and legal rights for agricultural workers included weekslong hunger strikes, legal action, boycotts and marches across the state.
Community activist Alicia Sanchez, who is also president of the Board of Directors of Santa Rosa-based KBBF-FM, the nation’s first bilingual Spanish-language radio station, worked as a lawyer alongside Chavez at the UFW in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“His philosophy was that we were not there to provide services for farmworkers,” she said in a phone interview. She and others who worked at UFW were “servants” of the farmworkers.
“We were the ones that were there to represent them, to do whatever, to be their voice… to make sure we made life better for farmworkers,” she said. “I totally agreed with that belief.”
Some of the group’s most notable actions include a more than four-year grape boycott, a 300-mile march from Delano, California to Sacramento, and playing a significant role in enacting the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975.
A landmark statute in U.S. labor law it established the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in California.
This law was passed as a result of Chavez’s work to extend the same protections as workers nationwide, said Julia Montgomery, general counsel with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which was established by the act.
The Sacaramento-based agency oversees the investigation of unfair labor practices and violations and also administers the union elections to make sure they’re conducted correctly.
Labor conditions today
Despite improvements to access to restrooms, water stations and legally mandated heat breaks, local farmworkers and activists believe economic conditions could be significantly improved.
“You know, we talk about inclusion, inclusion, inclusion. There has been no economic inclusion for farmworkers. And, I think that is what we're trying to change and fight for right now,” said Zeke Guzman, a Sonoma County farmworker advocate and president of Latino Unidos del Condado de Sonoma.
