UFW 50th. Anniversary Convention

 Highlights of UFW 50th Anniversary Convention. United Farm Workers Union.  

Saturday, May 19,2012.  Rabobank Convention Center. Keene, California.

• A three-hour program (1-4 p.m.) honoring the UFW pioneers, with special segments on the 1962 founding convention, 1965-1970 grape strikers and boycotters, 1966 peregrinos who marched from Delano to Sacramento, the Filipino American grape strikers and the farm worker ministry. Among the speakers will be Dolores Huerta, Chris Hartmire and Luis Valdez, whose Teatro Campesino will perform old union songs and actos throughout the program.

• Other speakers include California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton and Maria Elena Durazo, former farm worker and head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Note:  Dolores Huerta, retired UFW Vice President, will receive the Presidential Medal Freedom this week.

Sunday, May 20, Rabobank Convention Center. Keene, California

• Mass at 7:45 a.m. with Bishop Richard Garcia from the Monterey Diocese presiding, honoring the rive UFW martyrs.

• A program highlighting multiple new UFW organizing campaigns among strawberry, vegetable, tomato and melon workers in the Central Coast and Central Valley in the wake of Governor Jerry Brown signing a UFW-sponsored law in 2011. SB 126 says if growers cheat by breaking the law and denying farm workers their union, then the state can immediately certify the union and get the workers a contract. It also speeds up the process so farm workers don't have to wait two years before starting negotiations and it lets the ALRB general counsel go to court to reinstate farm workers illegally fired during union election drives.

• Among the speakers are U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, United Auto workers President Bob King, Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

For more: go to UFW.org