Why we boycott

1974

United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO

In the early 1970s, farm workers voted to be represented by the Farm Workers union under the leadership of Cesar Chavez. Union organizers visited and surveyed workers in the field. With workers' contracts poised to expire, the Teamsters were going to make them sign a contract, beginning the second grape strike.  The Teamsters sent union busters to break up the strike and many workers were injured, threatened, and arrested.  The film covers the strike expansion from Coachella to San Juanito Valley, the involvement and intimidation of the sheriff's department, and the funeral service of two murdered workers. In addition, the film explores basic human rights denied, including the right for workers to build their own union, the right to free elections in the fields, and the right to a decent wage and a decent life.

National Farm Workers Service Center

Labor unions; Boycotts; Strikes and lockouts; Discrimination; Union busting; Agricultural laborers

California; Coachella

Labor

Special Collections and University Archives

English

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the University of Maryland Libraries at http://www.lib.umd.edu/special/contact/home.

film reels

2014-001-RG97-003
533-1
This material was digitized as part of the "Advancing Workers Rights in the American South: Digitizing the Records of the AFL-CIO’s Civil Rights Division" project, supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation.

Filename: labor-086911; Catalog Key: 31430059608572