The Dispatch from Moline, Illinois • 31

THE DAILY DISPATCH THE DAILY DISPATCH He Succeeds Where Others Failed Cesar Chavez And The Farm I fj orker Editor's Note: Union organizer Cesar Chavez has had a major impact on American agriculture. His effort to organize lettuce workers, coming on the heels of a nationwide grape boycott, has brought about a confrontation with the Teamsters Union which also is organizing agricultural labor. Some say Chavez is an ascetic, nonviolent man; others say he is controlled by radicals. This is a study on Cesar Chavez and the labor movement in American agriculture. 'v Kir? 'HI 1 1 I St ssXlfe 1966, Bud Antle, of this Salinas Valley farm hub one of the world's largest lettuce growers negotiated a contract with the Teamsters.

Chavez, despite an August, 1970, no-raiding agreement with Teamsters, went into the fields in December of last year to attempt to organize the laborers under the United Farm Workers. There was technically nothing to stop him despite the unofficial agreement with the Teamsters because agriculture is not covered by the National Labor Relations Act and there are no conventional restrictions against Chavez doing whatever he pleases. This is not Chavez responsibility: farm industry for a opposed the NLRA which provides lor secret elections in which workers may chouse a union to represent them. The NLFA also prohibits secondary boycotts; the growers want this now. The Antle firm was ahead of other growers in recognizing the trend toward organization of farm laborers, just as it offered wages well in excess of prevailing rates during the era of the "bracero" (in Spanish, the "strong -armed in the 1950s.

Labor Graveyard For years, agriculture was the "graveyard of labor organization," as one California farm official put it. California was and is the most productive state agriculturally in the nation and growers for many years capitalized on the low cost of labor, much of it alien and nonwhite. The Communist Party was one of the first groups to call agricultural strikes in 1933 and 1934 but agriculture and business organized a countercampaign through the Associated Farmers of California. One of the early, bitter strikes in the history of agriculture occurred in 1936 when the AFL lettuce packers' union challenged the industry. Col.

Henry Sanborn, an Army Reserve officer, was employed as "coordinator" of antistrike forces, including local police and But a myth has been built up around Chavez which obscures not only the nature of the man, but the fact that he is neither a saint nor a devil but a person with all the virtues and the failings of a human being. Major Impact Ironically, although he is regarded almost as supreme by some of his followers, he is disliked or ignored by many of the Mexican-Americans and other minority members in the fields who live and die as farm workers. But he has had major impact on an industry which defied attempts to organize labor throughout history. Chavez major victory was achieved through a nationwide boycott of the table grape industry which lasted five years and began in 1965 with a strike in the vineyards of the San Joaquin Valley of California. Now, Chavez is engaged in a bigger, more difficult fight to organize lettuce workers.

To achieve that goal, he recently ordered followers to picket Army installations serving men lettuce from growers who have not signed contracts with him. He charged the growers entered into "sweetheart" contracts with the Teamsters Union that were designed by both sides to ignore his United Farm Workers. Chavez, 44, whose goal is organization of all 2.5 million farm workers in America, did not introduce unionization to agriculture. But he has had the most impact, much of it emotional, of any individual. He is engaged now in a confrontation with the Teamsters Union that eventually may lead to a showdown between that union and the AFL-CIO, of which Chavez' United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) is a member.

Raids Teamsters The Teamsters entered the California agricultural labor picture long before Chavez emerged as a national figure. Five years before UFWOC won recognition through a grape boycott in 1 SALINAS, Calif. (CNS) Every attempt to organize agricultural labor in America has failed miserably until the 1960s. This was due in part to the fact that most farm laborers were migratory and of foreign descent; in California, the largest agricultural state, the majority was Mexican, Filipino or Japanese. These industrious but poorly educated laborers did not respond to the professional, usually hard-bitten organizers who dealt for the most part with auto builders, railroad workers and others in industrial jobs.

When Cesar Chavez, a protege of labor leader and social scientist Saul Alinsky of Chicago, arrived on the scene, no one gave him much of a chance to succeed. He was small, serious and unknown to the vast majority of workers. But his critics and friends overlooked his personal "charisma" that appealed to the Mexican laborer, his dedication and the response he stirred among numerous American citizens he made conscious of the plight of the man in the field. They failed to perceive that Chavez came at the right time, when civil rights causes were fashionable for those who never had to do stoop labor, wrestle with melons, or slide across lettuce in fields of green leaves. And they also did not judge accurately his ability to sell a cause.

Chavez union agreed to merge, forming in August, 1966, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), and setting the stage for the decisive battle to organize farm labor in America. Maria is a slight but sturdy 30 -year old Mexican woman who looks older than her years. She has a broad smile that exposes gold fillings in her teeth. Maria is a "green carder" a legal immigrant but not a citizen who works in lettuce fields of the Imperial Valley of California and lives across the border in the neighboring city of Mexicali, Mexico. She is one of 2.5 million farm workers, 85 per cent of whom are migrants and many of them Mexican, who are regarded by Chavez as candidates for membership in his UFWOC.

Worker Afraid Maria, the woman in the field, doesn't know Chavez, the symbol of "La Causa" the cause and the most publicized figure in agricultural labor in America; nor, she says, dots she want to. She is afraid that if Chavez' UFWOC represents Bud Antle Farms, for which she has worked for two years, she will not have the same job in the same field each season and will have to take potluck under provisions of the Chavez union's hiring hall. Farm laborers migrate from one field to another when there is a crop to pick, and most try to stick with the same employer. The dark haired, slightly built Chavez is as much legend as fact to these farm workers. A saucy 18 year old girl, also Mexican and bra-less as she went about her field chores, voiced similar sentiments, although she obviously was worried about being quoted.

"Rosario" was afraid someone might tell on her, to her boss, the Teamsters Union, which represents the workers and which has a grievance representative in every field, or to Chavez' militant organizers. As the radio blared Mexican music throughout the field, ripe for harvest, she said: "I have a good time. I make $21, $22 a day. I don't know anything about Cesar Chavez." But neither woman can ignore Chavez, nor can the growers or Teamsters Union. Eyes Other States Meanwhile, the unions jockey for position and Chavez vows he will move into other states including Texas and Florida to organize the workers.

There is no simple explanation for the current farm labor crisis and it is a crisis for the housewife whose main concern is providing fresh produce that will be nutritious for her family. Nor is it easy to explain to a Mexican green carder a legal immigrant with all the rights of a citizen except the right to vote why he has to pay $15 to join UFWOC, or to become the member of any union. What he wants is food, money for lodging, and some hope for the future. Here are two major factors in the farm labor uprising: No. 1 There is a power struggle that cannot be resolved until the law is changed to bring agriculture under the same provisions as other organized labor.

After years procrastination, California growers have agreed in substance to support legislation on the state Ji CESAR CHAVEZ level aimed at such a goal. Bills have been introduced in the California Legislature to achieve this goal, and the growers at least a substantial number surrendered their original insistence that there be no strikes at harvest time. No. 2 There is no justification, at this time, for any increase in the price of lettuce to the consumer. "The price of lettuce is dictated by supply and demand," said John Elmore, a prosperous Crawley, farmer.

The wages paid the lettuce worker as much as $9 an hour have no real influence on the lettuce cost. One of the leading growers in the nation, who declined to be quoted by name, insists there is no excuse for the man in the market to increase the price of lettuce jon the basis of higher labor costs. "Lettuce is one of the most profitable produce items, and the increase in cost from the grower, a small one, could easily be absorbed by the retailer," he said. Social Tag Chavez often is described by growers and other critics as a leader of a social movement rather than a union. These people say that however difficult it m.

be to deal with the Teamsters, in the words of long time grower Merv Bradley of Salinas, the latter at least is a trade union which abides by its contracts. Chavez disputes this "social movement" tag. Organizing labor is the prime effort the UFWOC has undertaken, says Chavez, whose fast during the grape boycott attracted nationwide attention. "Everything else is secondary to that. Organizing the farm worker and organizing all the services that he needs to go with the union is the fundamental of the movement," he stressed.

UFWOC is not technically a union, nor does it have to be under the exclusion provisions of federal law regarding agiiculture. Such men as Lloyd, whose Coastal Growers Association is regarded as a model in the citrus industry, believe the growers have no one to blame but themselves for delaying the inevitable acceptance of negotiating with unions. deputies, to handle the pickets. The strike failed. California was in the spotlight again in the late 1930s so far as agricultural labor was concerned because of the influex of Dust Bowl refugees, most ol them of Anglo American stock.

Off To Shipyards When World War II began, many of these people whose plight was dramatized in John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" and Carey McWilliams' "Factories in the Field" left the farm for jobs in shipyards and other war industries. Under Public Law 78. enacted in 1951, the United States and Mexico agreed to permit contract workers to enter this country under the bracero program. These were not "green carders." They could work only in the fields, for a limited time; in effect, they were serfs, 1950 style. The Mexican government stipulated there had to be standard contracts covering wages, transportation, hours, housing and working conditions.

But in 1963, despite protestations from growers that agricultural production would be severely curtailed, the Congress decided against extension of the bracero program. It was terminated in 1964. The loss was not as severe as at first it was feared so far as the growers were concerned, however, in any of the major agricultural states. 'Green Carder' There remained for agriculture, and for other businesses, a major source of labor the so called "green carder." This is to some extent a misnomer: it is not a green card but a blue card identifying all immigrant aliens who have obtained visas within the complex quota system, whether from -Mexico, Canada or any other country. Despite the generally held belief that most green carders are Mexican farm workers, the fact is that a large number of those who do obtain such privileges to work in the United States function in a wide variety of jobs especially those who reside in Mexico and work across the border in such American cities as El Paso, San Diego and Calexico, Calif.

Organizing the farm workers in a conventional labor movement seemed an impossible task. The migratory workers did not respond to the incentives offered by such AFL-CIO organizers as Norman Smith, who was frustrated in his bid to gain collective bargaining for farm workers in the early 1960s. One of the first to comprehend the fact the farm laborer would not accept conventional unionization was Dr. Clark Kerr, then president of the University of California. "About the only time you ever get farm workers organized is when it is done by some group with an ideological inclination for more than a bona fide union purpose," Kerr said in 1961.

That is what Cesar Chavez is all about, and why he succeeded in stirring the emotions of the farm worker when no one before him had succeeded. No Communist Chavez, a native of Brawley, and a former migrant farm laborer who gained his eight years of formal education in nearly 40 schools, showed an early flair for unionization as an official of a Mexican American community service society. Like Fred Ross and Jim Drake, both very active in United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, Chavez learned the tactics he has applied in the union organization movement from Alinsky. Growers and labor leaders alike agree that Chavez is no Communist, however, despite the fact that radicals from the left flocked to his side when he started to gain national notoriety. Chavez did not begin making waves on the farm labor scene until 1965, when a still obscure Filipino, Larry Itliong.

led the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in a strike against 33 grape growers in Delano, an area of the San Joaquin Valley of Central California. Two weeks after Itliong's local union went on strike, Chavez' National Farm Workers Association joined in. Boycotts were conducted against Schcnley Industries and the Di Giorgio Corporations, the two largest owners of struck vineyards. Longshoremen in the San Francisco Bay Area refused to load grapes from those vineyards; Chavez as an individual gained national attention and sympathy as the "nonviolent" symbol of the movement to give the field worker the right to economic opportunity. Recognize Union In April, 1966, Schenley Industries announced it would recognize the National Farm Workers Association as sole bargaining representative for field workers the first time in history a major California grower had recognized a farm workers' union.

Subsequently, Di Giorgio agreed to permit its workers to decide by ballot whether to be represented by a union. Then, Itliong's Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the sheriff's officers have investigated to determine who was responsible. headed by Cesar Chavez, at Bud. Antle farm in Salinas, Calif. Windows were smashed on cars and buses, and This auto was one of many damaged during the picketing by the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, ConiBare Contrac is 123: i tiff iSsw? i ii nr nimi 11 mult use of several pesticides, including Aldrin and DDT.

It also permits the individual worker to decline to work when "in good faith he believes that to do so would immediately endanger his health or safety." The Teamsters' contract has no such provision. Jack Lloyd of the Coastal Growers says this presents an impossible situation, and imposes restrictions on the grower that could shut down his operations because of the individual discretion factor. The Antle firm closely regulates use of all pesticides with "professional direction" and states that the firm has not had an industrial accident involving commercial pesticides or insecticides in a quarter of a century. No. 4 The "Economic Development Fund" Contribution.

This is incorporated in the UFWOC contract and requires a certain contribution, ranging from 2 to 5 cents an hour, to go to the union for each employee toward economic development. There is no restriction as to use of the money, and growers as well as the Teamsters Union argue the money is used as a war chest for the United Farm Workers in strikes. Chavez defends the provision because he said it provides, through a cooperative effort, help to those who have never climbed above the poverty level. The idea is, he said, to provide an economic development fund to care for problems of the older farm worker with no place to go at the end of his working life. of seasonal seniority, and enable UFWOC to dictate who works where.

No. 2 Medical Plans. The Teamsters' contract with growers provides protection with benefits "not less than those presently provided by the Western Growers Assurance Trust fund" with costs borne by the company. In the case of the Bud Antle the program provides protection for all employees including nonunion personnel through the CNA Insurance Agricultural Industry Plan. The United Farm Workers Organizing Committee contract calls for the company to contribute 10 cents per hour for each hour worked toward the Robert F.

Kennedy Farmworkers Medical Plan. Chavez said the program neither is an economic development plan for strikes, nor can it be compared to a conventional industrial health program. "It couldn't be," he commented. "Almost any union plan now takes at least 25 cents an hour. dime is just peanuts now." Spokesman for the growers contend that however well meaning the Chavez program may be, it is uninsured and provides no real protection for the worker.

There is no contract provision recognizing an established carrier with statutory reserves for making benefit payments. ic ir No. 3 Pesticides. UFWOC, on grounds it is attempting to take "progressive steps to protect the health of farm workers and consumers," prohibits the Editor's Note: To understand the fight between Cesar Chavez' United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and the Teamsters Union, it is necessary to compare the contracts each has negotiated with growers and to read the contrasting views on key points in them. Here are some of the most controversial: No.

1 Hiring. Contracts signed by the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) with Inter-Harvest, a division of United Fruit Purex and others, stipulate all employees, including foremen, must be selected through a hiring hall, and that the preliminary notice must be given at least two weeks in advance of employment. The Teamsters' contract with Bud Antle, allows the company to hire on the basis of merit after available employees with seniority have been rehired. The job of foreman is a management position, not covered by the union. Jack Lloyd, director of the California Coastal Growers Association, sums up the growers' position this way: in almost all instances, farm work is seasonal and laborers migrate from place to place where there is employment.

But the good worker returns each year to the same employer, and seniority as well as competency is a factor. The growers fear that the United Farm Workers' hiring ball provision would prevent this type market, not In the field." He feels boycotts nationwide against grapes, lettuce and other crops could be disastrous. Jack Lloyd, articulate leader of the Coastal Growers Association of California, says that if farmers lose to Cesar Chavez' union, it will be "in the.