The Road to Unionization
Host Richard Goodman discusses the first major attempt by Mexican American farm workers to unionize at the DiGiorgio Corporation in California. In 1947, workers at the DiGiorgio farm picketed for better wages, grievance procedures, seniority rights and the recognition of their union Local 218 a branch of the National Farm workers Union (NFWU). Joseph DiGiorgio, the company’s founder, refused their requests and launched a crusade to ruin the union.
The union responded with work stoppages and a national boycott. However, Local 218, which counted Filipino, Anglo and Mexican members, lacked the funds to support such lengthy actions. Moreover, DiGiorgio was a substantial threat—he sent the police to attack the picketers, hired strikebreakers and spread rumors about the union. When these tactics failed, DiGorgio found other ways to attack the union and its supporters, which included the Hollywood Film Council.
In 1959, his company produced a report denouncing the union. Congressmen Richard Nixon, Thruston Morton, and Tom Steed signed and filed it in the Congressional Record, which lent the report an aura of authority. The report effectively ended the strike and ruined the NFWU. This episode slowed organizing among Mexican-Americans, but the struggle continues on.
KEYWORDS
1952 Melon Picker’s strikeAFL-CIO
Agricultural Labor
Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee
Alfred Elliot
American Federation of Labor
Anglos
Arvin, California
Bakersfield, California
Bob Whately
Bob Whately
Bracero Program
California
California Federation of Labor
California State Senate Committee on Un-American Activities
Cleveland Bailey
Communism
Congressional Immunity
Congressional Record
DiGiorgio Farms
DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation
Ernesto Galarza
Farm Workers
Filipinos
H.L. Mitchell
Henry Hasiwar
Hollywood Film Council
Hugh M. Burns
Jack Tenney
Kern County
Libel
Local 218
Los Angeles Examiner
Los Angeles Media
Mexicans
National boycott
National Farm Labor union
National farm workers union NFWU
NFWU
Picketers
Poverty in the Land of Plenty
Richard Nixon
San Joaquin Valley
Spiders in the house and workers in the field
State Farm Placement Service
Strike
Thomas Werdell
Thruston Morton
Tom Steed
Union
Unionization
Wetbacks
Work Stoppage