Remembering Chavez
Some fun facts you may want to know about Cesar Chavez!
Austrailia Visa--
Most farm labor leaders until the 1980s opposed illegal immigration and endorsed employer sanctions. During the 1950s and 1960s, Ernesto Galarza, Julian Samora, and Cesar Chavez called for a beefed up Border Patrol and stiff employer sanctions to stop illegal immigration.
Arizona Republic--
Finally, if one needed a glimpse of the gray in the immigration issue, it came at the end of the press conference at which the multi-million dollar lawsuit was announced. A group of Latinos clapped and chanted as someone picked at a guitar - there is always a guitar. Before long came the obligatory reference to a cultural saint. "Que viva Chavez! " someone shouted. So caught up were the protesters in their political fiesta that they were oblivious to, or unconcerned with, the historical fact that Cesar Chavez, a labor leader intent on protecting union membership, was as effective a surrogate for the INS as ever existed. Indeed, Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union he headed routinely reported, to the INS, for deportation, suspected illegal immigrants who served as strikebreakers or refused to unionize.
Today in History--
In 1969, the UFW organized a march through the Coachella and Imperial Valleys in Central California to the United States-Mexico border to protest growers' use of illegal immigrants as strike breakers. The thousands of marchers were joined by the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. In 1970, Chavez was jailed for defying a court injunction against boycotting. While imprisoned, he was visited by Coretta Scott King and Ethel Kennedy.
Center for Immigration Studies--
The UFW called a strike in support of its demands, and posted "wet patrols" on the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent unauthorized Mexicans from replacing strikers. The UFW was only partially successful: Chavez complained that "employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike." However, in August 1979, some of the vegetable growers agreed to "record contracts" that raised farmworker wages as the UFW had demanded and improved benefits. The UFW charged that the growers that did not sign new contracts had failed to bargain in good faith as required by the ALRA, and the state agency administering the ALRA agreed, ordering them to pay the same wages and benefits that the UFW had won with other growers under the law?s unique make-whole remedy aimed at helping to level the playing field between growers and workers. For one grower alone, make-whole wages and benefits were estimated to be $15 to $20 million, that is, the employer would have paid this much more to workers if he had bargained lawfully.
Austrailia Visa--
Most farm labor leaders until the 1980s opposed illegal immigration and endorsed employer sanctions. During the 1950s and 1960s, Ernesto Galarza, Julian Samora, and Cesar Chavez called for a beefed up Border Patrol and stiff employer sanctions to stop illegal immigration.
Arizona Republic--
Finally, if one needed a glimpse of the gray in the immigration issue, it came at the end of the press conference at which the multi-million dollar lawsuit was announced. A group of Latinos clapped and chanted as someone picked at a guitar - there is always a guitar. Before long came the obligatory reference to a cultural saint. "Que viva Chavez! " someone shouted. So caught up were the protesters in their political fiesta that they were oblivious to, or unconcerned with, the historical fact that Cesar Chavez, a labor leader intent on protecting union membership, was as effective a surrogate for the INS as ever existed. Indeed, Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union he headed routinely reported, to the INS, for deportation, suspected illegal immigrants who served as strikebreakers or refused to unionize.
Today in History--
In 1969, the UFW organized a march through the Coachella and Imperial Valleys in Central California to the United States-Mexico border to protest growers' use of illegal immigrants as strike breakers. The thousands of marchers were joined by the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. In 1970, Chavez was jailed for defying a court injunction against boycotting. While imprisoned, he was visited by Coretta Scott King and Ethel Kennedy.
Center for Immigration Studies--
The UFW called a strike in support of its demands, and posted "wet patrols" on the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent unauthorized Mexicans from replacing strikers. The UFW was only partially successful: Chavez complained that "employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike." However, in August 1979, some of the vegetable growers agreed to "record contracts" that raised farmworker wages as the UFW had demanded and improved benefits. The UFW charged that the growers that did not sign new contracts had failed to bargain in good faith as required by the ALRA, and the state agency administering the ALRA agreed, ordering them to pay the same wages and benefits that the UFW had won with other growers under the law?s unique make-whole remedy aimed at helping to level the playing field between growers and workers. For one grower alone, make-whole wages and benefits were estimated to be $15 to $20 million, that is, the employer would have paid this much more to workers if he had bargained lawfully.