🍇

The Delano Grape Strike Overview

May 30, 2025

Workers United: The Delano Grape Strike and Boycott

Background

  • Date: September 8, 1965
  • Participants: Over 800 Filipino farmworkers affiliated with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC)
  • Location: Delano, California

Key Demands of the Strike

  • Raise in hourly wages from $1.25 to $1.40
  • Increase in piece rate from ten cents to twenty-five cents per box

Key Figures

  • Larry Itliong and Ben Gines: Veteran organizers leading the strike
  • Cesar Chavez: Leader of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)

Context

  • AWOC had recently won similar concessions in Coachella Valley.
  • The termination of the Bracero Program in 1964 sparked a wave of farmworker strikes.

Challenges and Risks

  • Many farmworkers lived in company housing and faced eviction.
  • Possibility of replacement by Mexican and Mexican American workers.

Involvement of the NFWA

  • Initially hesitant, but decided to join the strike.
  • NFWA membership overwhelmingly voted in favor on September 16, 1965.
  • Picketed ten additional vineyards.

Growers' Response

  • Refusal to negotiate with striking workers.
  • Hired replacement workers from various states and Mexico.

Broader Movement

  • Evolved into a civil rights struggle, aiming for justice for farmworkers.

The Boycott Campaign

NFWA as More Than a Union

  • Provided services beyond traditional labor organizing.
  • Linked their struggle to broader civil rights movements.
  • Collaborated with organizations such as SNCC and CORE.

Strategy

  • Use of boycotts due to lack of legal protections.
  • Targeted secondary boycotts were viable because farmworkers were excluded from the Taft-Hartley restrictions.

Schenley Industries Boycott

  • Target: Schenley Industries, a major grower known for liquor sales
  • Outcome: Significant drop in sales and eventual labor agreement with NFWA

Continued Use of Boycotts

  • Repeatedly employed to counterbalance financial and political power of growers.

Impact and Legacy

  • Shifted from a local labor dispute to a national civil rights issue.
  • Focused on gaining basic labor protections for farmworkers.
  • Sought federal intervention to recognize farmworkers' rights to union organization and collective bargaining.

Conclusion

  • The Delano Grape Strike marked a significant moment in labor and civil rights history, highlighting the interconnectedness of economic and social justice.

Bibliography

  • Araiza, Lauren. "To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers."
  • Bardacke, Frank. "Trampling out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers."
  • Jenkins, J. Craig. "The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Movement in the 1960s."
  • Levy, Jacques E., and Chavez, Cesar. "Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa."
  • Shaw, Randy. "Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century."

View note sourcehttps://www.nps.gov/articles/000/workers-united-the-delano-grape-strike-and-boycott.htm