Peter Siegesmund

A Long Time Coming

Chapter 6: “The Coming of the Union”

by Dick Meister and Anne Loftis

The effort to unionize workers began quietly. A Roman Catholic priest named Thomas McCullough began working to establish an internal organization of California farm workers as a tool to fulfill the spiritual and physical needs of the primarily Spanish speaking Roman Catholic workers he encountered. The organization, the Agricultural Workers Association, never left the planning stage before the AFL-CIO announced that its next big move into rural farm labor organizing. Many groups had pressured the AFL-CIO to organize this union. Groups such as religious spokesmen, liberal citizens’ groups, and legislative committees all appealed to the AFL-CIO to take up the farm workers’ cause because of evidence of exploitation that had been mounting for years. Additionally, there was pressure to increase AFL-CIO’s numbers, which had been dwindling for years.

If organizing was to be done, it would begin in California due to its high agricultural concentration and high percentage of farm workers. The AFL-CIO set up its operations in the middle of the AWA. The initial planning stages followed AWA plans; they set up branches and built a base of permanent workers. However, AFL-CIO bosses still organized workers as if they were auto workers that were concentrated in one place and as if all workers had similar goals in mind. The truth of the matter was that farm workers were scattered into small groups, worked irregular hours, and frequently changed employers.

Growers responded to the impending threat of unionization by asking for more liberal rules for braceros and through efforts to lobby public opinion in their favor. Conversely, the AFL-CIO’s main focus turned to cutting the flow of braceros. Representatives appeared regularly before legislative committees to argue that braceros were not needed and attempted to show off all of the workers that were locals but did not have enough work. The AFL-CIO had several small victories, but they were usually only on one farm and the long strikes usually ruined that year’s crops. They were not having much success, despite the large amount of money that the AFL-CIO had thrown into building a coalition. However, some success was evident because farm workers and growers alike were more aware of the union presence and the threat of possibilities that it held. It also had proof for its liberal allies that the best way to increase work standards was through legislation and to bring farm workers under the Labor Relations Act.

Finally, after little success, the AFL-CIO brought in new leadership from the top of its organization. The organization infused another half-million dollars but most was wasted. A new leader named Al Green changed the dynamics of the organization by firing other AFL-CIO leaders and sending away the volunteers, making it clear that the organization would be run from the top. Green’s system meant that many workers had to pay their union dues before they could board a contractor’s bus that picked them up at a central location at the beginning of each work day. They often got higher pay in exchange, but most workers felt that the AFL-CIO was merely an organization that they had to pay in order to find work. It was during this time that Cesar Chavez began organizing farm workers outside the structure of the rigid union guidelines. They were laying the basis for the campaign that would at last bring collective bargaining into agriculture and the unions along with it.