Working for a Better Tomorrow. The hot sun burning the skin of the workers around me. I have to keep picking because I

Transcription

1 Mena 1 Imelda Mena Pat Holder/ Paul Lopez Working for a Better Tomorrow The hot sun burning the skin of the workers around me. I have to keep picking because I need to be able to feed my family." This was many farm workers view point after the Great Depression in The effects that the great depression had on the field workers is that many people took jobs that even paid almost nothing. (PBS 1) They took a lot of the tough jobs that many Filipinos and Mexicans already had, like picking grapes, cotton and mining; which made them have to put up with bad working conditions in order to feed their families. These problems are what created many labor movements to increase workers rights and without them the job there wouldn t be a lot of goodworking conditions now. The United Farm workers union was a union founded by Cesar Chavez which helped people try and get betterworking conditions and rights. Cesar Chavez helped give voice to the farm workers, gave them courage to stand up for themselves and to go against the companies who weren t treating them right. This movement helped shape the working industry because when more people joined, it gave the United Farm Workers a louder voice. This union was founded in 1962 to help people go against the companies that were mistreating employers. Cesar Chavez fought hard to get many farm workers on his side, but it was a challenge for him because many people at the time didn't want to join unions. Although it was tough for people to follow what Cesar Chavez believed in they knew that they would get better working conditions. The union members also help set up protests and strikers so that it would give the workers a strong voice.

2 Mena 2 Most workers put their lives at risk because working in the fields was very dangerous. Most farm workers had to put up with problems like no bathrooms, no clean water to drink and no aid in case of an accident. But they still tried to go to work because they had to supply their families with food. By having the UFW, it helped the field workers quit their job knowing that there will be success if everyone stay together in this fight. People in the 1960's were scared of joining unions because they were scared of failure. They did not want to join a union because they did not want to quit their job for nothing and then watch the strike fail. They did not want to return back to their jobs and the conditions they were in. Without work for a couple of days it affected them drastically because they needed money for food. Workers only lived off of less than $2.00 a day; therefore, without work for one day, it was harder to supply food for their family. People s families were more than five people because they lived with uncles and cousins too. I remember times when it was a little hard to quit-we needed the money-but we didn't consider that. Our attitude was, we have to do it, and we accepted it."(levy 79) Cesar Chavez was not willing to give up even when times were rough on him and his family. There were many different labor movements back in 1960s that had lots of success, but what makes Cesar Chavez stand out was that he had risk his life to try and help other people. He never put himself first and he was always ready with full support for the next step ina protest or huelga, which was a term that Chavez used a lot, meaning strike in Spanish. When Chavez did not succeed he tried over and over again until he attained the results he wanted. Chavez was not just a union founder, but he was a leader. He showed people how to do things right. Cesar Chavez did a lot to help out farm workers because he was going through the same experience. He was pushed around in the sun to do hard field work. He put together and attended a lot of protests

3 Mena 3 and also never thought about himself, only the people he wanted to help. Chavez was also the type of person who was a good role model by showing that violence was not the answer. "To us the boycott of the grapes was the most near-perfect of nonviolent struggles, because non violence also requires mass involvement"(levy 269). Chavez was raised to think that violence was not the answer. However, it showed him that if a lot of people supported a cause it gave it more strength. Chavez organized many protest with active members of his union. He would also communicated a lot with the Filipino Farm Workers Union. Both of the unions worked together to get the Delano Grape protest another try. The Delano Grape protest had failed many times, but after they got all together try it again they succeed. One of Cesar Chavez's greatest protests was The Delano Grape Protest. This protest was created so that the farm workers could acquire better working conditions, better wages and a contract with the Delano Grape growers. Chavez helped and supported many Filipinos because they were also helping and collaborating with Chavez's union group the United Farm Workers Union. Chavez took his followers and attended the Delano grape strikes to try and get better working conditions and wages. He did not stop until he got what he wanted for his union. "In the first week of the strike many strikers would not leave their camps, so the growers shut down the camps and closed utilities like water."(levy 184) Even if many people followed what Chavez said, his union yet did not make much sacrifice of their own stuff for thebetter future. It took a long time before Chavez's union grew strong and stuck next to what they believed in. While boycotting Delano grapes, he got his FWU to talk to markets and stores and tell their shoppers to not buy grapes. This supported his cause because people realized that if they

4 Mena 4 didn't buy the grapes than the growers would most likely give up because they would need money. Because of this easy and simple task of not buying grapes, over 13 million Americans supported him by boycotting Delano grape (PBS 2). Chavez's strong union overtime it shaped the working industry because he didn't stop protesting after one strike. He kept going, finding more and more people who disliked their working conditions and wanted to do something about them. "Chavez had inspired an organization that did not look like a labor union. His vision did not include just the traditional bread and butter issues of unionism; it was about reclaiming dignity for people who were marginalized by society"(tejada-flores 1). This shows that people supported Chavez not only because of what his organization did but also what it meant. Chavez had created something so strong and only with a couple of strikes he showed people that he was not going to stop. By striking one company at a time he helped show other companies that if they did not treat their workers properly he would be after them as well. He also showed companies how to be fair and have much more communication between the worker and the grower. Overall, he helped shape the working industry by setting standers on how much people should get paid for their job and what kind of environment they are in while they work. Without Chavez our wages and working conditions would be very unfair.we would work tough jobs for long hours and get paid barely enough to supply ourselves. We would live our life revolving around work starting as a kid. The look on life would be the complete opposite of this quote. "You can't marry a job, my dad used to say, you can marry a woman, but you can't marry a job" (Levy 78) Cesar's dad had a very unique look on life and made a very clear point. Life should not be about working, but about living.

5 Mena 5 When he was young his family took him to the fields to work and during a small break they would have to find shade behind their van to escape the heat. This shows that the working conditions were really bad and the growers wouldn't and didn't do anything about it because they didn't really care. Chavez changed that in the long run because then people started to care about their employees because they were scared of getting boycotted. In the long run Chavez also was able to change a lot of people's lives with his union. In the short run Chavez lost a lot of work and most of the time had little money. He had to put up with bad working conditions. There were stories-a lot of them-about the haciendas, how the big landowners treated the people, about the injustice, the cruelties, the exploitation, the actual experiences our uncles had had. (Levy 32)." When Cesar was a kid he was told the life of a migrant worker. The bad conditions people had to overcome and as he got older he saw his uncles stories come to life. Even though Cesar went through a lot of torture for work he didn't stop. He knew that things had to be changed; it was just a matter of time to show people what he was going to do about it. Overall, Chavez succeeded a lot in his life by demanding fair wages and working conditions for others who were struggling. He helped shape the working industry and also helped a lot of other people through his union. He had a lot of success but it didn't start out as easy. He kept going and showed other people that change was coming and they needed to support him. He showed that when the going gets tough the tough gets going because he had nothing to lose and he was not going to back down. One of his biggest successes was gettinga contract after protesting against the Delano Grape, but this would not have been possible if he wouldn't have tried. Cesar Chavez played abig role in all the labor movements known. He

6 Mena 6 is someone who is the most recognized because he never put himself first and gave everything he had to his union and his people.

7 Mena 7 Works Cited: Levy, Jacques E., and Cesar Chavez. Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Print. Kuhns, Jon. "The Rise of the United Farm Workers." Web. 20 Sept "Fight in the Fields - UNITED FARMWORKERS UNION." PBS. Web. 10 Sept < "The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle." PBS. Web. 10 Sept < "Cesar Chavez." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 Sept < >. "THE BEGINNING." UFW: The Official Web Page of the United Farm Workers of America. Web. 23 Sept