|
Miriam PawelAuthor: Union of Their Dreams, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez
National Endowment for Humanities Fellowship Email Interview: February 17, 2014 |
1. How has Cesar Chavez's efforts impacted farm workers across the country?
"In achieving his historic victories, Chavez showed that the poorest workers could, through collective action, become empowered. His success achieved some concrete changes at the time, but its long-lasting legacy was as an inspiration for others. At the height of the movement, Chavez changed the way people viewed farm workers, he changed the workers' view of their own power, and he became an inspiration for people in many walks of life, far removed from the fields. By building a successful social movement, he drew attention to conditions in the fields and the treatment of farm workers and forced their issues into the national consciousness. He did this through his own actions and sacrifice, such as his lengthy fasts and marches, and by building a national grape boycott that gave farm workers a human face and gave people across the country a simple way to help farm workers attain contracts and dignity - stop buying grapes.For many of the generation who worked in the California fields during the height of the UFW - from the late 1960s through 1980 - this experience was life-changing. For volunteers who worked for the UFW, the experience was equally significant in shaping their lives. Chavez and the UFW taught many people how to organize and how to promote social change, and they took those lessons with them the rest of their life, as teachers, labor organizers, environmentalists, lawyers, and so forth.
Chavez also became the symbolic leader of the Chicano movement, and the most well-known Mexican American of his generation. To this day he remains the most significant Latino leader in this country, and in that role he has served as an inspiration for many people. His legacy today is not in the fields, where the union he build has long ago become insignificant, but in the cities and around the country."
2. What challenges do farm laborers face in today's society?
"Farm workers today face many, many challenges, because the work is still one of the physically hardest and lowest-paying jobs and their jobs are not protected by most of the basic health, safety, and wage and hour laws that apply to almost all other workers. For example, in most states farm workers are exempt from overtime laws that apply to other workers. They can be made to work as many days and hours in a row as needed, and if they refuse, they can be fired. Their housing and work conditions are exempt from many of the health and safety laws.
Also most farm work is seasonal, so either workers have long periods when they are out of work, or they have to switch jobs depending on the crops and the seasons. Because farming is affected by weather, bad weather can mean losing a day's work. Or a drought, like the one we are currently experiencing, can mean a lot of people lose their jobs because crops cannot be planted and irrigated.
Many farm workers are hired by labor contractors, who are middlemen - they are hired by the grower and they provide the workers. Some labor contractors are good, decent employers, but many exploit workers who are desperate to keep their jobs. So the labor contractor may cheat them out of wages, and the workers have little recourse. Legally, they must be paid minimum wage, but it is difficult for the government to enforce that. One of Chavez's goals was to eliminate the labor contractors, but because the UFW today is so weak, for most workers there is no union to turn to for help and they have little recourse.
Because so many farm workers today are undocumented, they also face the fear of deportation. They cannot obtain legal documents, such as driving licenses (although a new law will change that in California soon). Those are just some of the challenges for farm workers today."
3. What struggles did Chavez and the UFW overcome during their mission?
"The challenges changed somewhat over the course of the struggle, but one of the biggest ones Chavez and the union faced was fear. Workers were afraid of what would happen to them if they joined a union or supported his cause; they could be punished by their employers or lose their jobs. He needed to instill hope in them - hope that if they worked together, they could bring about change and improve their working conditions, and he had to work so that the hope outweighed the fear. Employers were afraid, too - afraid that the union would usurp their power and make it more costly and difficult for them to operate. They were not accustomed to facing their workers across a negotiating table and treating them as equals. Chavez faced a lot of racial prejudice as well; In the early days of the union, Mexican Americans were viewed as not good enough or smart enough to do much other than stoop labor. Chavez was challenging not only agribusiness, the most powerful industry in California, but also the cultural and social norms. Growers and their allies controlled the local governments, the courts, the police, and even in many places the church, because they were the established pillars of the community and the financial backers of religious institutions. Chavez was challenging the status quo and taking on a very powerful industry.
Later on, once the UFW was established, Chavez faced a whole other set of challenges: How to operate a union successfully. He had to meet the demands and expectations of his members - the farm workers - and of the employers, who expected certain things under the contracts that they signed."
4. Why is Cesar Chavez sometimes viewed as a controversial figure?
"For some of the reasons above - that he was challenging the status quo. If the union had been successful in the long run, it would have changed the way agriculture operated. People are always afraid of change, and for growers, whose financial security is almost always shaky to begin with, depending on weather and market conditions beyond their control, Chavez represented yet another potential threat to their security. He was also viewed as the leader of a social movement as opposed to a "business union," and that made him a more complicated figure than a traditional labor leader. Some of the controversies about him in later years stemmed from his philosophical commitment to build a community and pursue a social movement even at the expense of the efficient operation of the union. He made decisions, such as insisting on an all-volunteer staff rather than having paid employees, that in many ways crippled the union. It lost most of its most effective organizers and negotiators by 1980. Chavez was committed to building a community at the union's headquarters in the Tehachapi Mountains, and he employed some tactics - such as an encounter-group type therapy called "the Synanon Game" - that upset people. He was a very intense, focused, and driven person - which he had to be to achieve what he accomplished.His need to control and micro-manage frustrated a lot of people. He also was very reluctant to ever admit errors and stubborn about defending his decisions, even when he made mistakes."
"In achieving his historic victories, Chavez showed that the poorest workers could, through collective action, become empowered. His success achieved some concrete changes at the time, but its long-lasting legacy was as an inspiration for others. At the height of the movement, Chavez changed the way people viewed farm workers, he changed the workers' view of their own power, and he became an inspiration for people in many walks of life, far removed from the fields. By building a successful social movement, he drew attention to conditions in the fields and the treatment of farm workers and forced their issues into the national consciousness. He did this through his own actions and sacrifice, such as his lengthy fasts and marches, and by building a national grape boycott that gave farm workers a human face and gave people across the country a simple way to help farm workers attain contracts and dignity - stop buying grapes.For many of the generation who worked in the California fields during the height of the UFW - from the late 1960s through 1980 - this experience was life-changing. For volunteers who worked for the UFW, the experience was equally significant in shaping their lives. Chavez and the UFW taught many people how to organize and how to promote social change, and they took those lessons with them the rest of their life, as teachers, labor organizers, environmentalists, lawyers, and so forth.
Chavez also became the symbolic leader of the Chicano movement, and the most well-known Mexican American of his generation. To this day he remains the most significant Latino leader in this country, and in that role he has served as an inspiration for many people. His legacy today is not in the fields, where the union he build has long ago become insignificant, but in the cities and around the country."
2. What challenges do farm laborers face in today's society?
"Farm workers today face many, many challenges, because the work is still one of the physically hardest and lowest-paying jobs and their jobs are not protected by most of the basic health, safety, and wage and hour laws that apply to almost all other workers. For example, in most states farm workers are exempt from overtime laws that apply to other workers. They can be made to work as many days and hours in a row as needed, and if they refuse, they can be fired. Their housing and work conditions are exempt from many of the health and safety laws.
Also most farm work is seasonal, so either workers have long periods when they are out of work, or they have to switch jobs depending on the crops and the seasons. Because farming is affected by weather, bad weather can mean losing a day's work. Or a drought, like the one we are currently experiencing, can mean a lot of people lose their jobs because crops cannot be planted and irrigated.
Many farm workers are hired by labor contractors, who are middlemen - they are hired by the grower and they provide the workers. Some labor contractors are good, decent employers, but many exploit workers who are desperate to keep their jobs. So the labor contractor may cheat them out of wages, and the workers have little recourse. Legally, they must be paid minimum wage, but it is difficult for the government to enforce that. One of Chavez's goals was to eliminate the labor contractors, but because the UFW today is so weak, for most workers there is no union to turn to for help and they have little recourse.
Because so many farm workers today are undocumented, they also face the fear of deportation. They cannot obtain legal documents, such as driving licenses (although a new law will change that in California soon). Those are just some of the challenges for farm workers today."
3. What struggles did Chavez and the UFW overcome during their mission?
"The challenges changed somewhat over the course of the struggle, but one of the biggest ones Chavez and the union faced was fear. Workers were afraid of what would happen to them if they joined a union or supported his cause; they could be punished by their employers or lose their jobs. He needed to instill hope in them - hope that if they worked together, they could bring about change and improve their working conditions, and he had to work so that the hope outweighed the fear. Employers were afraid, too - afraid that the union would usurp their power and make it more costly and difficult for them to operate. They were not accustomed to facing their workers across a negotiating table and treating them as equals. Chavez faced a lot of racial prejudice as well; In the early days of the union, Mexican Americans were viewed as not good enough or smart enough to do much other than stoop labor. Chavez was challenging not only agribusiness, the most powerful industry in California, but also the cultural and social norms. Growers and their allies controlled the local governments, the courts, the police, and even in many places the church, because they were the established pillars of the community and the financial backers of religious institutions. Chavez was challenging the status quo and taking on a very powerful industry.
Later on, once the UFW was established, Chavez faced a whole other set of challenges: How to operate a union successfully. He had to meet the demands and expectations of his members - the farm workers - and of the employers, who expected certain things under the contracts that they signed."
4. Why is Cesar Chavez sometimes viewed as a controversial figure?
"For some of the reasons above - that he was challenging the status quo. If the union had been successful in the long run, it would have changed the way agriculture operated. People are always afraid of change, and for growers, whose financial security is almost always shaky to begin with, depending on weather and market conditions beyond their control, Chavez represented yet another potential threat to their security. He was also viewed as the leader of a social movement as opposed to a "business union," and that made him a more complicated figure than a traditional labor leader. Some of the controversies about him in later years stemmed from his philosophical commitment to build a community and pursue a social movement even at the expense of the efficient operation of the union. He made decisions, such as insisting on an all-volunteer staff rather than having paid employees, that in many ways crippled the union. It lost most of its most effective organizers and negotiators by 1980. Chavez was committed to building a community at the union's headquarters in the Tehachapi Mountains, and he employed some tactics - such as an encounter-group type therapy called "the Synanon Game" - that upset people. He was a very intense, focused, and driven person - which he had to be to achieve what he accomplished.His need to control and micro-manage frustrated a lot of people. He also was very reluctant to ever admit errors and stubborn about defending his decisions, even when he made mistakes."