The Plight of the Migrant Farm Worker
In 1977, Antonio Orendain led the Texas Farmworkers Human Rights March from San Juan, Texas to Washington D.C. to draw attention to the plight of Texas farm workers and the right to work laws that hindered their organizing. In here, he discusses the TFWU’s strategies for organizing undocumented workers, migrant farm-workers and specific growers in a right-to-work state like Texas. He touches on the regional needs that led to a split from the United Farm Workers, as well as the labor audience in Latin America for La voz del campesino.
Antonio Orendain, a leader of the Texas Farm Workers Union, discusses their efforts to repeal the Right to Work laws protected in the Taft Hartley Act and organize farm workers. Orendain explains that these laws encourage people from other countries to undersell their labor, but he does not think illegal immigration is the problem. He places the source of the trouble among employers and free enterprise system that exploits the situation of the poor, the under-educated, and the immigrants. As part of their protest, the Texas Farm Workers collected over 85,000 signatures on a petition calling for the Right to work laws to be repealed. Orendain discusses how pleased he was to enjoy the solidarity of African Americans and other veterans of civil rights struggles, and in particular the assistance throughout the march. He discusses his meeting with Vice President Walter Mondale and Ray Marshall, the University of Texas Government Professor and then Secretary of Labor, and their agreement that Section 14 B of the Taft Hartley Act is unjust, bad law, and difficult for farm-workers. Orendain hopes that their march helped people realize the ways laws and policies shield growers and factory owners from workers in the United States.
Orendain also discusses his break with Cesar Chavez and explains that after 15 years of cooperation, they decided to try and focus their energies on organizing in Texas and not just in California. He then reflects on the successful organizing strategies that worked in South Texas and offered ways for listeners to support the union in South Texas. Key examples included donating food, clothing and money to help during strikes, printing their newspaper and buying radio time for their program, La Voz el Campesino, which is broadcast on both sides of the border. He discusses responses to La Voz del Campesino in Guatemala and along the Guatemalan border, and even reflects on Mexico’s labor policies towards Guatemaltecos on the southern border.
KEYWORDS
African AmericansAgricultural Workers
Austin, Texas
Bilingualism
Black Workers
California
Cesar Chavez
Chicano Black Relations
Civil Rights
Collective Bargaining
Concientizacion
Congress
Derechos Humanos
El Cuhamil
Ethnic Press
Ethnic Solidarity
Farm Workers
First Amendment
Free Enterprise
Guatemala
Guatemala
Harvest
Honduras
Huelgas
Human Rights
Illegal Alien
Jimmy Carter
La Voz Del Campesino
Labor Strategy
Libel laws
March on Washington
Nonviolence
Peanut Grower
Peticiones
Petitions
Pisca
Political Exclusion
Pontius Pilate
Protest
Radio
Ray Marshall
Regionalism
Right to Work
Right to Work Laws
Rio Grande
Rio Grande Valley
Role of the State
San Juan, Texas
Secretary of Labor
Section 14-B – Taft-Hartley Act
Senate
Simpatia
Solidarity
Strike
Strike Fund
Strike Strategy
Taft-Hartley Act
Texas Farm Workers Union
Texas Farmworkers Human Rights March to D.C
Transnational Labor Organizing
United Farm Workers
Walter Mondale
Washington, D.C.
Winter Garden Area