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From The Fields: Farmworkers Vote, Face New Battles

By VVAW

Years of struggle by California farmworkers under a new phase this summer and fall, as they focused on winning elections for representation by their union, the United Farmers Union (UFW). The intense battles and widespread, militant support generated around the country, forced the California state government to pass a law conceding workers in the fields the right to vote for union representation.

The struggle, and the forcing of the law, was a major blow to growers' schemes to the ban unions altogether or to sign sweetheart contracts with the Teamster Union leadership behind the backs of the workers.

But the growers haven't thrown in the towel, of course, and they are trying to use the new law to blunt the sharp edge of the farmworkers' struggle. One of their tactics has been to tangle the farmworkers in a maze of courts and the newly formed California Agriculture Labor Relations Board (the Commission), getting the struggle out of the fields where the workers are strong, and into the courts, where, with laws and judges who served the interests of the growers and their class, the growers are strong.

As of November 1, the UFW had won 141 elections as opposed to 91 for the Teamsters with 12 for "no union." While these results raise victory, and broke the grower-Teamster official sweetheart strangehold, it was clear that the law by itself had not given the kind of total victory that some, including the UFW leadership, and promised. This has given rise to a lot of discussion among farmworkers. The following article takes up some important questions around the current phase of the struggle. It first appeared in The Worker for the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys, an important agriculture region in California.

When the growers barred UFW oranizers from the field, we filed depositions with the Agriculture Labor Commission and waited for them to take action. When the Teamsters carried guns into the fields and threatened workers, we filed depostitions with the Commission and waited for them to take action. When the growers fired entire crews sympathetic to the USW, we filed depositions with the Commission and waited for them to take action.

And what "action" in the Commission take? They can charge the growers and Teamsters with the "unfair labor practices," which amounts to nothing more than what one grower laughingly called "a slap on the wrist."

As we twist and turn trying to find a legal way out of the web, the growers openly violate the law, safely in their dark little holes, practically immune from punishment.

How did we get in this fix? Where did this law come from? What is its purpose? How can we free ourselves from these bonds so that we can move forward in our struggle against the growers?

The law came from our own struggle. It represents a defeat in the growers' strategy to destroy the UFW by bringing in the Teamsters as a company union. In 1947 we had more strikes in the fields of California than any other time since the 1930's. The growers were hurting. They decide to agree to this law that would grant farmworkers the right to vote for the UFW to represent them in negotiations. In exchange they hoped to move the struggle of farmworkers from the fields (where the growers could be badly hurt) to the courts (where the growers are pretty safe).

The growers are not the first members of the boss class to try out workers' struggles in the courts. The bosses have been doing that for years. In the courts, their money talks. They always can win delays and postponements that make it very difficult to conduct winning strikes. That's why the minors just waged a furious struggle to keep the right to strike over local grievances in their own hands, rather than turn those disputes over to some judge on an arbitration board. That's why the steelworkers are fighting a determined battle against the No-Strike deal. And that's why in the past the farmworkers have torn up injunctions aimed at stopping our strikes.

Our strategy in the face of this new law should have been clear. Using it to win all we can, but never tie ourselves to it completely. As long as we depend solely on the law, the growers have us where they want us--caught in a web of depostitions, injunctions, court orders, and legal maneuvers.

The leadership of the UFW walk right into the trap. When the law was passed they told us, "the race is." Rely on the law, they lectured us, rely on our friends in the government. When things go wrong they tell us not to despair, the problem is only that the wrong people are administering the law. But the law itself, and the official UFW strategy of relying on the law, are never faulted. They tell us we are going to ride the law all the way to good contracts. It is the law that gives us power.

That is a lie. Our power to the bosses our ability to withhold our labor and to stop others from working in up our places. The strike is the main strength of our union, whether our strikes are called legal or illegal by some corrupt judge. Supposedly the great benefit of this new law is that once we win an election the bosses must negotiate with us or they are breaking the law. But when we wage successfully strikes, the bosses must negotiate with us or lose their ass. And the bosses are more afraid of that then they are afraid of breaking the law.

Let's go ahead and win all the elections we can. But we must not let our struggle get tied up in a legal web. These elections are not shortcuts. We still have the struggle ahead of us for good contracts. No law can win the struggle for us. No liberal governor, nor friendly priest. We must win ourselves.

Farmworkers will soon be involved in strikes to battle the growers for higher wages and better conditions. As in the past, the support of millions of working people and others around the country will help them win victory.