i love wat i learned 2day it was really inerting

Cesar Chaves Is a great man Someone write back

I have three questions regarding the L.A. Times series on the UFW: 1) Did the UFW, in fact, hire non-union workers to build the $3.2 million National Chavez Center?
2) Has the UFW abandoned the secondary boycott, as a non-violent social justice tactic?

3) Does the UFW currently have a full-time organizer in San Diego County?

I have been a UFW supporter for nearly forty years. I certainly hope the allegations in the Times’ series are untrue.

this is sadly very true. but she only looked at one side of this. not to be disrespectful but real writers look at both sides of the story [to every story there is one other side]i am doing a project and i have to look at both sides so it is balanced. that is just my opinion

its cool

Corrected rewrite below at: *
I am a documentarian and a film maker.  I have documented, and have supported numerous rallies, boycotts, huelgas, etc. of the UFW’s.  I am 43 years old, and since I was a child, my family, and some friends have been supportive of the rights of farm workers (I was one when I was a boy).  This fight is really about equal treatment for all workers, because if we can help those bottom of the rung workers by organizing and taking action; then you can do so for all workers. 
To say that the UFW has become ineffectual in this is to be utterly ignorant, and out and out, deceiptful.  It makes me wonder, if there is some other agenda behind this, and “where did it come from there at the L.A. Times?” afterall, Miriam *never attended a rally, or anything UFW, so how can she even claim all of this?  Where, I ask, did she get her supposed first hand knowledge, in other words?  Hm, Miriam?  Not from your own experience, I can assure everyone, because after reviewing all of my tapes, I don’t see her at any of the rallies, or such.  So where???  Surely, she wasn’t anywhere around when we were all getting ready to re-strike against Gallo Wines recently, and fortunately for us, because she may have influenced Gallo against the huelga by reading them her phoney article!
It really baffles me, that as even Oprah has come down from her high chair to admit a mistake about Mr. Frey’s inaccurate memoirs, then why hasn’t the Times also done so?  I think the truthdigs article needs to be sent to them for examination to be printed.  If they don’t do so, then I know a lot of people who know a lot of people, who will soon stop subscribing to the Times, and just stick to the new Daily Times instead - because it is obvious that the huelga is still on; only it is not just the Farm Owners who are trying to stop us, evidently, so we need to be smart and steadfast!

Mario A. Cepeda - si se puede!

Blair Golson’s article is very logical and comprehensive in refuting Miriam Pawel.  He did so with facts from UFW officials who deserve our respect. 

My question is this.  Why should the UFW who have done more for the farm worker than any other group in history be continually put on the defensive.  What a waste of their time when the work that they do every day is so important.

The United Farm Workers tries to see that both state & federal laws are enforced on such issues as immigration and pesticides as well as proposing its own laws on these issues. 

We must ask ourselves who benefits from these negative articles that the LA Times publishes?

Stephanie Bower

I remember when the Los Angeles Times was a respectable newspaper.

These anti-Chavez articles - in this era of worker exploitation and anti-immigrant policies - are playing to the lowest levels of readers.

Perhaps these Times writers need to spend a day in the fields, with no shade or breaks for the bathroom - and then see how their articles appear, in contrast to those who do this hard-on-the-back/knees work.

May the UFW and the pro-Chavez people keep up their litany against such false reporting!

Are we singing to the choir here. So the present staff gets paid for what they do, the sacrifices they made when Cesar was alive more than justifies every penny. The days of five dollars a week got lost in the last century.
The present concern is the new wave of farm workers AKA terrorists who are living on step one. The same step one that enraged and motivated Cesar Chavez to organize them. The present concern is the pseudo patriots AKA rednecks, who refer to themselves as minutemen. I would like to see them carry their patriotism just a step further and work and live for one hot season working in the fields, picking grapes under the 120 degree weather in the Imperial Valley, just one season going up and down rickety ladders picking tree fruit, set up raisin trays or unload containers full of wine grapes, in the San Joaquin Valley or stoop over all day picking lettuce in the Salinas Valley. This is the best way to lose their beer bellies in one season. Forget wasting time and money on the border. If they want to help farmers who can’t find workers, now is the time for them to help them out by doing their patriotic duty.

Aggressive defensive posturing is not, by itself, self-authenticating.  Whenever someone responds to criticism with a passionate recitation of what good deeds they have done - in the past - forgive me for not being swayed by this alleged “rebuttal.” Further, when one supports an organization that relys in no small part on its moral authority - then narrow nit-picky responses do not really deflect the over-all charge that this organization seems to have muted its focus.

Institutionalization has lead to bureaucracy which has lead to corporate behavior such as petty infighting and obsession with one’s personal salary, title, office size, etc.

You know how to co-opt the revolutionaries?  Give them assets - money, property, contracts with those they were trying to change (i.e. in this case the growers themselves).  I am SURE that the UFW is pure and cannot be questioned regarding its effective commitment to La Raza.  And my beloved Los Angeles is a great place to live now, and I am going to visit my great-grandfather’s rancho - which is NOT under the Santa Monica freeway.  If wishes were horses then beggars would ride - or in my family’s case, we’d revert back to being caballeros.

I am a documentarian and a film maker.  I have documented, and have supported numerous rallies, boycotts, huelgas, etc. of the UFW’s.  I am 43 years old, and since I was a child, my family, and some friends have been supportive of the rights of farm workers (I was one when I was a boy).  This fight is really about equal treatment for all workers, because if we can help those bottom of the rung workers by organizing and taking action; then you can do so for all workers. 

To say that the UFW has become ineffectual in this is to be utterly ignorant, and out and out, deceiptful.  It makes me wonder, if there is some other agenda behind this, and “where did it come from there at the L.A. Times?” afterall, Miriam attended a rally, or such, so how can she even claim all of this?  Where, I ask, did she get her supposed first hand knowledge, in other words?  Hm, Miriam?  Not from your own experience, I can assure everyone, because after reviewing all of my tapes, I don’t see her at any of the rallies, or such.  So where???  Surely, she wasn’t anywhere around when we were all getting ready to re-strike against Gallo Wines recently, and fortunately for us, because she may have influenced Gallo against the huelga by reading them her phoney article!

It really baffles me, that as even Oprah has come down from her high chair to admit a mistake about Mr. Frey’s inaccurate memoirs, then why hasn’t the Times also done so?  I think the truthdigs article needs to be sent to them for examination to be printed.  If they don’t do so, then I know a lot of people who know a lot of people, who will soon stop subscribing to the Times, and just stick to the new Daily Times instead - because it is obvious that the huelga is still on; only it is not just the Farm Owners who are trying to stop us, evidently, so we need to be smart and steadfast!

The recent series of articles in the L. A. Times on the United Farm Workers by Miriam Pawel are one-sided.  It fails to take into consideration the present difficulties of organizing farm workers in the fields, many who are immigrant and seasonal workers.  Unlike other unions who can sustain their efforts through collecting the dues of year-round workers, the UFW has had to look beyond the worker’s dues for survival.  Given these conditions, it is understandable why the UFW has had to develop other non-profit, independently-run entities in order to sustain and institutionalize its efforts.  Those of us, who have continued to work with the union and its organizers over the years, know the sincerity of their leadership in seeking to institutionalize a movement without losing a long-term commitment to what is in the interests of the farm workers and all workers. 
What Pawel does not mention is that,, even under these difficult conditions, the UFW has recently won 32 election victories in the fields and negotiated dozens of contracts with the largest strawberry, rose, winery, and mushroom firms in California and the nation.

Jose Calderon
President, Inland Valley and San Gabriel Valley Latino and Latina Roundtable
Professor in Sociology and Chicano Studies, Pitzer College
Michi and Walter Weglyn Endowed Chair in Multicultural Studies, Cal Poly Pomona University

The series of stories by Ms Pawel are inaccurate and unfair.  She had no input from the UFW before she wrote them.  The L.A. Times should run another series of articles by someone who gets both sides of the picture.

On Dec. 4, 2005, I ran the following on my blog site at http://www.news-opinion.blog-city.com under the title “Lives of Fear and Terror” in regard to the plight of farm workers that the UFW is constantly trying to help.  My blog was in response to an appeal by UWF:

Lives of Fear and Terror

The lives of terror and fear, not to mention dehumanized working and living conditions, that I’m referring to here are not in Iraq or Afganistan.  Nor are they the result of some natural disaster such as the tsunami in SE Asia or hurricane Katrina.  They are the everyday lives of migrant farm workers right here in the U.S.  I worked for a couple of years for an agricultural surveyor in California’s Central Valley back in the late 1950s.  We often picked up migrant workers from the company labor camps where they lived to fill out our crew and saw others working in the fields where we were surveying for irrigation lines in vinyards, orchards and rice fields.  So I saw first hand the conditions under which these workers—latino, Anglo and black—lived and worked.

In 1965 and 1966 I was in graduate school at Fresno State during the early days of Cesar Chavez’ efforts to organize a union, the United Farm Workers, for these migrant workers.  I remember taking 2 days off to walk with Cesar and others along old Hwy. 99 on the big march from Delano to the capital in Sacramento.  I also remember attending a meeting of a Senatorial Committee chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, that was looking into the treatment of migrant farm workers by the growers who employed them at starvation wages and forced them to live and work under horrendous conditions.  Bobby Kennedy really tore into some of the growers, I remember and I instantly installed him into my pantheon of “heroes” which included Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

The efforts of Cesar Chavez and others to form a union were successful after a long hard struggle which continues today.  The Union has helped thousands of these workers, but for other thousands, things have not changed much.  Many growers continue to exploit these people just as they always have.  The United Farm Workers union has been a group that I’ve tried to support to the best of my ability ever since the 1960s.  I still have a framed UFW poster on my wall that says “Boycott Scab Grapes” and urges people to buy grapes only from Union label boxes. 

Periodically, I recieve phone calls or letters urging financial contributions to help support the work of the UFW and I usually send a little.  I recieved one such letter yesterday.  Finances are especially difficult for me right now and I can’t do as much as I’d like, so I decided to post the letter I received, and perhaps reach others who could contribute to a worthy cause.

You can check out the UFW website at http://www.ufw.org for information on how and where to contribute and to learn more about this organization.  Here is the letter I received.  It describes the exploitation and mistreatment that is a part of the everyday life of the poorest segment of our society while the Bush administration and the GOP controlled Congress continue to dole out billions of dollars in corporate welfare to the wealthiest members of our society.  Another reason that I’m ashamed of my country today. — Bryce

The Workers Independent News at laborradio.org looked into this after that story was published also. Good to see it isn’t being let off the radar:

From Leilani Albano’s report:

The LA Times four-part series about the United Farm Workers has sparked a fury among those in the progressive community.

In last week’s articles, Times author Miriam Pawel lodges a host of allegations against the UFW.

Most damaging of all, the Times author says that the union has abandoned founder Caesar Chavez’s mission of aiding farm workers. 

Unlike the UFW of the 1960s and 1970s, when the organization launched the widely successful grape boycotts and implemented major changes for workers, today’s union does little to help farm laborers, Pawel reports.

However, not everyone agrees with her assessment.
It is one pack of lies after another.

That was long-time UFW spokesman, Marc Grossman.
The fact is, thousands of farm workers benefit everyday from the United Farm Workers efforts…32 election victories, dozens of news UFW contracts, with some of the largest strawberry, rose, winery, mushroom firms in California and the nation. We dedicate up to fifty percent of the union’s resources to organizing, which is among the highest of any union.

Grossman also points to the organization’s recent successes in passing major farm worker protections including last year’s regulations to prevent heat deaths in the fields, binding mediation laws in 2002, new remedies for workers cheated by contractors, the Agjobs bill, as well as an upcoming immigration reform measure.

Despite the union’s achievements, the conditions of most farm workers remain grim. As Pawel points out, the UFW represents only 1 percent of the 450,000 farm laborers in the state. A majority of them, she reports, still earn poverty wages and lack decent housing.

While Grossman does not refute these facts, he points to the intimidation tactics used by growers such as the Giumarra Vineyards during the company’s elections last year. He says that their actions prevented more workers from voting in favor of having a union.
But in the last couple of days before the balloting, Giumarra told worker,s if you vote for the UFW, you’re going to get fired if you’re without papers, you’ll lose company housing, we’re going to convert from table grapes to wine grapes, which would result in substantial job losses and other intimidations and threats.

David Bacon is a KPFA programmer who specializes in labor issues and is a former UFW organizer. He says that author Miriam Pawel’s discussion on the lack of housing is faulty.

I think Ms. Pawel raises legitimate questions about the housing trust, which include, are the resources of the trust being used to construct housing for farmworkers?....

But then again here, she is pointing again to the lack of housing without asking the obvious question.  Why is there such a crisis among farmworkers in California? And the reason for that is growers tore down their labor camps in the 1970s and the 1980s and refused to take any responsibility for the housing of their workers.

While farm workers continue to languish in poor conditions, Pawel says UFW leaders engage in profit-making ventures. This includes their network of union-related operations that are dominated by the Chavez family and friends, as well as the United Farm Worker-product line displaying the organization label.

In addition, she says union leaders initiate projects and launch political campaigns that do little to help farm workers.

KPFA programmer David Bacon had this to say about the UFW’s activities.
(26 seconds)
I think that you can legitimately ask this question about every union in the United States. Is it organizing workers effectively? Are the resources of the union being adequately mobilized in order to organize? And I think that the answer you’re going to get in almost every case is really, no. That there is a lot the unions can do and need to do about organizing workers. And that includes the United Farm Workers.

Although Bacon agrees with Pawel on several points, he says the Times reporter ultimately fails to give a true understanding of the UFW.
This current series I think represents a turning away by the paper to really taking a look at the real problems of farm workers, where they’re coming from, whose responsible for them, what the union’s responsibility is, inside that context.

Moreso, Pawel’s stories, he says, reflects the Times’ growing conservative bias against the union and farm workers.

There are certain things that are happening at the LA Times that make one think the paper is moving to the right. Moving Robert Sheer for instance from the op-ed page, and other things like that make you wonder whether or not the paper has decided to take a more right wing, pro-Republican line, and of course in California, what that means is lining up with the growers and the Republican party.

For Workers Independent News, this is Leilani Albano

To sum up one of the main errors, Miriam Pawell omitted specific facts and figures that would contradict any of her points.  The pdf file cites the example that she included the recent $2 million+ collected but failed to contrast it to the much smaller $700,000+ raised in the mid nineties because that would detract from her claim that the UFW is failing to organize.  I didn’t get through the whole pdf but have reflected on what I read in the Times and on this website, as well as my experiences with the UFW and growing up in an agricultural community.

As a college student who has visited LaPaz and met many of the UFW organizers, I have to say it was obvious that Pawell’s piece was her opinion with no effort at fair and balanced reporting.  Yes, I think the Union needs to adapt a bit if it wants to maintain its status in the eye of the public media, but this is true for most organizations for social change.  It is rare to achieve the phenomenon that surrounded Cesar Chavez or other leaders of social change such as Martin Luther King or Mohandas Gandhi.  Remember that Cesar Chavez and the UFW became part of United States history at a time closer to the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other catalysts of social change that had public attention.  Modern America is a different place.  People are adapting to the exponential growth of technoloy and a globalizing world.  Americans overall are certainly not complacent about social issues, but the enthusiasm just seems less pervasive today.  Probably every movement is grappling with these changes and an overall loss of momentum.  This is why it seems Miriam was wrong in her choice of scapegoat.  The real scapegoat is any individual who does not do their part to make the world what they know it should be.

I think and I hope that Miriam Pawell just wants higher standards.  She chose a cruel way to confront the UFW about her concerns.  Such concerns should be brought to the individuals and if they fail to do anything then futher action should be taken; make the inaction public record, not subjective opinions.  It seems that she never really had a much needed heart to heart with the Union leaders.  Instead she opted for the attention of public insults in a newspaper with broad circulation (perhaps an unethical abuse of her powerful position at the paper?). 

So how should the Union react?  Cesar Chavez used to take walks in the hills around LaPaz to meditate on what actions the UFW should take, only settling for the responsible and right thing to do.  I hope the leaders of the UFW are taking walks in those same hills, reflecting, and figuring out what they can do not simply to cosmetically repair their image, but to emerge from this struggle a stronger, better UFW than ever before.  I hope they let their lawyers worry about the immediate responses and take time on their own to figure out what is the next right step for their own selves, and then for the Union. 

That is the legacy of Cesar Chavez - seek to understand then to be understood.  The UFW exists because many people wanted to do what is right, they took time to figure out what was right and then dedicated their lives to the cause.  Miriam Pawell wants accountability.  The organization is not a magical thing.  It is run by humans.  All people need to hold themselves accountable as much as they are capable; if many people do this the organizations we put our faith in will not be allowed to deviate from accountability.  They will be aware of our devotion to what is right.

Some of us don’t have time to read 100-page documents of spin...can someone sum up the main alleged errors?

The LA times is a non-union shop.

Need I say more?

Fight On!

Food For Thought

I was very much taken aback when I read the articles regarding the UFW.  As a concerned citizen, I believe we have lost our focus regarding the real issue(s) at hand regarding the farm worker, which raises many questions due to the confusion created by the articles written in the LA Times.

When did it become the UFW’s sole responsibility to make sure all farm workers live and work in better conditions?

Why did Californians as well as the U.S. allow the media to place the culpability on the UFW for the oppressed treatment and slave-like conditions that farm workers endure daily?

Since we as citizens are so concerned about the farm worker, shouldn’t we really be focusing on the Agra Business giants who employ these individuals?

Isn’t Agra business a billion dollar industry, which I assume would be able to make certain that their employees are fairly compensated and treated with the dignity and respect they very much deserve?

Why is it that as concerned citizens, our focus has not been on the growers or even on the fact that the growers have been allowed to treat their employees as slaves for so long?  I mean, it is 2006, right?

Should Ag growers be held responsible for allowing their employees to live in sub-standard conditions, earning below minimum wage, with no health care benefits simply because they (growers) employ undocumented and/or migrant individuals?

The last time I checked, although a majority of the farm workers are undocumented, they are still human and breathe the same air as their employer while harvesting the food we so graciously consume.

Are there federal regulations and/or laws stating that all businesses must comply by certain employee work standards across the board?

Are Agra businesses excluded from federal laws and standards regulating employee hiring practices?

It just does not make sense that our government would allow Agra business, “the heart of America’s economy”, to provide such a disservice to their employees, moreover, to the citizen’s of this country, considering that we have fought for so long to end oppression and slavery.  This is 2006, right?

We can no longer allow Agra business to oppose those who fight for the rights of the farm worker.  We can no longer focus on tearing down the one union who has tirelessly and consistently fought for the rights of the farm worker. 

It is time to focus on the root of the problem. As concerned citizens, it is time we focus on the Ag growers who employ the farm worker while the employer is allowed by the consumer to hire individuals under sub-standard practices.

As concerned citizens and as consumers, we can no longer allow the farm worker to be treated as inhumane by their employer while we enjoy the fruits of farm worker labor.

I encourage you to start asking your legislator’s questions about the Agra business owners in your area.  As concerned citizens, we have the right to ask our legislators questions, don’t we?

I also encourage Americans to research and support the AgJobs bill, which begins to give the farm worker the respect and sense of worth they deserve for the tireless labor they continuously perform for US.

One more thing: the media knows that negativity sells.  Next time, let us not be so naïve.

As a former full-time volunteer (1969 - 1973) I appreciate what Blair Golson has done.

It doesn’t matter what the LA Times does or doesn’t do from here on. The UFW, the Chavez family, the members and supporters know that the articles were hogwash and they (we) will continue to support the work started by Cesar, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong and the other farm workers who started the United Farm Workers.

We/they have suffered the attacks before, by agribusiness, by political wannabe’s and by the right wing controlled press. We have survived and the UFW will continue to do so.

In the past, when attacked, it has drawn us all closer together and made us stronger. I see it happening again, already.

Namaste y Hasta La Victoria Siempre,
Kevin M Brown, Owosso, Michigan USA

If all these allegations are true Cesar Chavez would be ashamed. I hope his name and legacy are much more than an ATM machine.

Blair Golson nails this… great work.