Overview of the
United Farm Workers in
Washington
State
Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962,
and so began the early organizing efforts of the United Farm Workers. In 1965,
farm workers in Delano,
California
struck for a fifteen cent increase in their hourly wage. As news of the grape
boycott and organizing efforts spread to
Washington, local farm workers began their own efforts.
Tomás Villanueva and Guadalupe
Gamboa drove to Delano
in 1966 to meet with Chavez, and returned to the
Yakima
Valley
to begin their own community and labor organizing efforts.
Due to the lack of resources in
California, Chavez encouraged independent organizing in Washington, and supported their efforts until his death in 1993.
In 1967, Villanueva founded the UFW Co-op in Toppenish,
Washington, serving as a community hub and organizing center.
In 1968, the Black Student Union at the
University
of
Washington
recruited Latino students from the Yakima
Valley. Erasmo
Gamboa was one of those recruits, and enrolled at the University
of
Washington
in Fall of 1968. As a student he
was key in organizing the first Mexican American student organization (a
precursor to Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán—MEChA) and actively
supporting the grape boycott on campus.
By 1970, the first official union organizing committee was formed in response
to a series of wild cat strikes in the hops fields of the Yakima
Valley. In spite of organizing efforts,
success was hard to come by and their union remained unrecognized.
Community building, however, remained strong as the Farm Workers Family
Health Center (now known as the Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic) was opened in
1972 and provided affordable health care for farm workers and their families.
Organizing efforts continued through the 1980s with large marches protesting
the low wages being paid to farm workers. In
1986 the United Farm Workers of Washington State, still independent of the
AFL-CIO, was officially created and christened by a march led by Cesar Chavez
from Granger to Yakima. Through the mid ‘80s, the Apple Commission had lured hundreds of workers to
Washington State from the Southern US with the promise of jobs, yet the
conditions for the existing workers were already sub-standard and unemployment
already high. Fed up with low wages
and high unemployment, workers picketed outside of and occupied the Office of
Employment and Security in Yakima
to demand a meeting with Governor Booth Gardener in 1987.
Governor Gardener granted a meeting with the farm workers, but their
demands for better wages and accountability from the Apple Commission were not
met.
By 1988 the picket lines had begun to form at the Chateau Ste. Michelle
winery, and by the early ‘90s a full organizing and corporate campaign had
been launched. Rosalinda
Guillen took a strong lead in the efforts that eventually led to the first union
contract (reached in 1995) for farm workers in Washington
State, at which time the UFW of Washington State affiliated with the United Farm
Workers of America AFL-CIO.
Today the UFW in Washington
State, headquartered in Sunnyside, continues to organize and appeal for farm worker
rights and dignity.
