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| Duane Campbell and Cesar Chavez, 1972. |
by Duane E. Campbell
Dissent Magazine has a review of Frank Bardacke’s book on
the Cesar Chavez written by Nelson Lichtenstein, Director of the Student of Work, Labor and Democracy at U.C.
Santa Barbara. The review is here.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=4096
While there are some distinct strengths to the Bardacke book
I also find some strong drawbacks which Lichtenstein did not deal with. I wrote a response to the
Lichtenstein review but Dissent decided to not post nor print my response. Here is my response. I think that these issues concerning
Chavez and the UFW deserve a response, not because Chavez is above reproach,
which he wasn’t, but because the Chavez -Huerta, Vera Cruz legacy of the UFW
has made a strong and lasting contribution to Chicano/Latino politics.
The review of Frank Bardacke’s
book, Trampling Out the Vintage:
Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers, by Nelson Lichtenstein that appears in
the Winter 2012 Dissent does an excellent job of describing some of the issues
in farm worker organizing in California and of summarizing the views of
Bardacke in his book. It
also makes some strong arguments about union organizing and repeats several
unfortunate claims about Cesar Chavez and the union.
Trampling
Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers.
(2011, Verso). is the view of a well- informed observer who worked in the lettuce fields near Salinas for six
seasons, then spent another 25 years teaching English to farm workers in the Watsonville, California area. His views on the growth and decline of the United Farm
Workers union – some of which I do not share– offer important
points of history and reflection
for unionists today.
Lichtenstein
in his review summarizes well some of this important issues and he
reveals his own position in claims such as , “ instead he focuses his narrative
onto the next decade when Chavez became increasingly self-destructive leader even as an enormously hopeful
wave of farm worker militancy exploded across the state..” By the way. Why was there an explosion of militancy
? Perhaps it was the development of hope for change provided by the early UFW
victories.
Trampling Out the Vintage,
provides several insights including those of the important
differences between grape workers and workers in row crops such as lettuce; the length of time
workers were in the UFW, the more
settled family nature of grape workers, the strength of each type of ranch committees, the leadership of ranch crews ( and thus the potential differences in
creating democratic accountability), and the differing histories of worker
militancy in different crops. The author correctly argues that each of these led to
somewhat different organizing environment in building the union.
We do not have to project a “self
destructive leader” as does Lichtenstein, nor to blame Chavez’ s Catholicism
and mysticism as does Bardacke.
These significant differences developed as a consequences of different
experiences in organizing.
In 1962 Cesar Chavez made the
decision to organize the settled
mostly Mexican American workforce
in and around Delano - a grape growing region in California’s Central Valley. Based upon his prior work
with Community Services Organization (CSO) [U1] and
his training by Fred Ross in the Saul Alinksy tradition, Chavez decided to organize entire families
into an association, not just the workers into a union. This required, for example,
organizing women as family members and as
workers. Most of the
working families had settled in the area; they had roots, they stayed year- around rather than
migrating from place to place.
Chavez saw this population as
a base for building a
permanent organization. The decision to focus on Delano and its semi-permanent
grape workers was a choice to not
focusing on recently arrived Mexican workers – those whom Bardacke worked among
in the Salinas valley. Bardacke
criticizes the decision by Chavez
and Dolores Huerta to organize the
more family-established Mexican Americans rather than the more migrant Mexican
workers in the vegetable and row crops.
As
an example of the importance of this issue, Bardacke reports on the sharp
differences in views those who thought that the struggles in Salinas could be
won by strikes and work stoppages (paros) and the Chavez, Huerta, Executive
Board position to depend more upon building a boycott. These differences led to sharp
divisions in the union. The two
groups had learned different lessons from their different experiences in the
fields. The Chavez, Huerta
group insisted upon the strength of the boycott. That is what their experiences had taught them. The Mario Bustamante, Mojica, side, and
author Bardacke, wanted to push for extensive strikes and work stoppages,
perhaps a general strike, including preventing strikebreakers from harvesting
enough crops. This direct
workplace action approach is what their experience had taught them. The two groups of union activists had
learned different lessons from their different experiences of confronting
corporate –grower and racist power.
In my view Bardacke under analyzes
the nature of the racial state and
the interaction of racial and economic oppression in the fields of
California and in the U.S. .While
he makes some brief references to a
role of Chicano or Mexican
nationalism within the UFW, these
are not analyzed in depth.
Specific incidents of police and political repression are treated as abuses of power rather
than a racially constructed system
of oppression. All the previous attempts to organize farm
workers were broken with violence along racial lines.
The role of racism, and the
individual reactions to systemic structural racial oppression are complex and vary in part based upon the differences
in experiences of the participants.
As the Chicano movement argued
at its core- the experiences of U.S. born and reared Mexican Americans and Chicanos were
different than the experiences and the perceptions of racism of Mexican
immigrants, both documented and undocumented. There are a diversity of racisms and a diversity in
the manner in which workers
learn to respond to oppression. Chicanos and Mexican Americans grew up,
were educated, and worked in an internal colony. Their schools, their unions, and their political experiences
were structured along racial
lines. They learned
colonized structures.
Bardacke does not sufficiently
acknowledge the struggle of
the UFW and the Chicano Movement in breaking this colonial legacy.
Mexican
migrants had a difficult life under an oppressive one-party state at home, but usually did not suffer
this internalized colonialism.
Bardacke reports on these differences in his descriptions of the early lives of rank and file leaders Mario Bustamante, Hermilo Mojica, Marcos Munoz and others.
Their struggle in the fields
was initially primarily a workers struggle for economic justice.
Different organizers learned
different things from their experiences.
Perhaps a mass strike could have won in 1972, perhaps not, we do not
know. Marshall Ganz in
Why David Sometimes Wins,
does a better job than does Bardacke in describing some of the racial
fault lines of farm worker
organizing. Ganz was director of organizing for the UFW in Salinas and a long time
member of the UFW executive board.
He notes, the unions were
organized along ethnic lines- as were the growers and the political power
of dominant Anglo political forces. ( Ganz P.161) Since the organizations were structured
along racial and ethnic lines, it is peculiar then to have Bardacke describe conflicts between the UFW and its
opponents as if they were primarily economic in nature. Barnacke discusses the volatile issues of racism as primarily about Chavez’s liberal supporters – by
which he means largely white or Anglo supporters. There were
additional issues of racial and ethnic conflict within the union
responding internally in part to
the rise of Chicano nationalism.
What
we can agree upon is that the UFW failed to gain sufficient strength to survive
as a union representing the vast number of farmworkers.
The
failure to gain strength is not surprising. Compare the period of
decline of 1977-1986 in the UFW to the complex battles of the Reuther Brothers to gain control
and to keep control of the United
Auto Workers, including the UAW’s relationship with the AFL-CIO . (1949-
1970). The UAW went from 1.5
million members in 1979 to 390,000 in 2010, and the United Steelworkers and
other unions suffered similar
declines. Is it any wonder that the smaller, less established, less well funded
UFW suffered dramatic
declines from racial
oppression and the brutal assault
on the union in the fields of Texas, Arizona and California?
Did the UFW decline? Yes. Did farm workers lose the substantial gains in wages and
working conditions they had won in the 1970’s? Absolutely. How do unions build
a movement when undocumented workers can replace strikers ? This issue has continued to divide and
defeat unions in the U.S.
Lichtenstein follows Bardacke in
criticizing Chavez as “obsessed” in not following up on the California
Agricultural Labor Relations law passed during the term of then, and current
governor Jerry Brown. Well,
the UFW did follow up. They won
the vast majority of the elections.
But then, and now, elections did not result in contracts. The problem was not Chavez’s obsession,
it was that this law is not working.
Bardacke spends a great deal of time on the purges of UFW
activists, organizers, and volunteers
in 1977 -1981 period. While
often presented as anticommunist
decisions by Chavez and an example
of his “obsessions” many of the
dismissals were for lack of loyalty to Chavez and his decisions as the final
arbiter of all issues in the union.
Their had been dismissals all along the history of the UFW, including in
1972. Some of those
dismissed in the 80’s were active supporters of the dismissals in the 70’s. Some of the “purges”
were based upon left politics, and some of the dismissals were based
upon other differences, including differing views of the best direction for the
union.
As a leftist myself for over forty
years (DSA) , and an observer of some of these events, I argue that some of these dismissals
may have been legitimate. If you follow the role of the
Progressive Labor Party in the region, or the efforts of the Communist Party
M-L, there were real problems. One
was the effort to take over the newspaper El Malcriado. Leftists are not always
responsible allies. There
was reason for concerns.
In the Chavez-Huerta direction of
organizing, as developed by Alinsky and the CSO, left ideologues are often seen
as a problem and at times manipulative.
I am not claiming that any specific firing was legitimate. . Bardacke does describe some cases
where honest, dedicated volunteers were purged after being accused of being communists. This was appalling. And, I do not know the Chavez’s state
of mind at the time. Nor does
Bardacke. I don’t know about
the other cases. However,
there was reasons for concern.
And, other leftists continued to work with and support the UFW for
decades. Dolores Huerta is an
Honorary Chair of DSA, and Eliseo Medina is an Honorary Vice Chair. Philip Vera Cruz was a clear leftist
and he left the union for reasons other than his left politics.
There were dismissals and staff leavings for a variety of reasons. Some of the most significant dismissals were not about
left nor right, but were about issues of both policy differences and personal
loyalties.
We know that social movements
emerge, are organized, grow and then are institutionalized – or they decline.
Few unions have been able to create democratic internal culture. Few social movements have been able to
maintain their momentum for more than a decade and they leave behind little of
institutional power except small
advocacy groups. Where are
the examples of unions building a democratic process which fights for their
jobs? Certainly not the
rival Teamsters union in the canneries and packing houses of California.
Lets
recognize a labor leader and an innovator. Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California – one
of eight states to recognize the
date, and one of the few holidays
in the nation
dedicated to a labor
leader. This is the 50th.
anniversary of the founding of the UFW.
I recommend the book
Trampling Out the Vintage and the review for serious students of
the Farmworker Movement who wish to learn of the diverse perspectives of the
struggles in the fields. There are major issues of leadership and
organization to be considered. In
particular the book is excellent on the struggle in the Salinas /Watsonville
lettuce area. There is a longer review of the book
here.
http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/trampling-out-the-vintage/ and, there is much more to be said.
I do not recommend it as a sole or
primary source on UFW history or the history of Cesar Chavez. Rather it should be read in conjunction with other sources on
the UFW including Marshal Ganz’s Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership,
Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement, Randy Shaw’s Beyond the Fields; Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the
Struggle for Justice in the 21st. Century and the extensive
sources available on the Farmworker Movement Documentation Project http://www.farmworkermovement.us/
Duane Campbell , professor
emeritus of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at California State University-Sacramento, worked with the UFW as a volunteer from
1972-1976. He then collaborated with Bert Corona on immigrants-rights efforts.
His most recent book is Choosing
Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. (2010) He is currently chair of Sacramento Democratic
Socialists of America and chair of the Chicano/Mexican American Digital History
Project for the Sacramento region.
For information on the projects,
go HERE []
[U1]Spell
the name out in first rererence.
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