Huerta was instrumental in the union's many successes, including the strikes against California grape growers in the 1960s and 1970s. Chávez was the dynamic leader and speaker and Huerta was a skilled organizer and tough negotiator. Larry Itliong was a Filipino American labor organizer who forefronted the grape strike in Coachella Valley that spearheaded the Delano Grape Strike of 1965. The UFW was created through the emergence of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) which was mainly composed of Filipino migrant workers and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) which was mainly composed of Mexican migrant workers. In 1962, she co-founded a workers' union alongside community activists such as Larry Itliong and César Chávez, which was later known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). citizenship to receive public assistance and pensions and creating Spanish-language voting ballots and driver's tests. Through the AWA, she lobbied politicians on many issues, including allowing migrant workers without U.S. To further her cause, Huerta created the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) in 1960. This group was affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, headed by Saul Alinsky. In 1952, Chávez met Fred Ross, who was a community organizer working on behalf of the Community Service Organization. History Founding of the UFW Ĭésar Chávez - speaking at the Delano UFW−United Farm Workers rally in Delano, California, June 1972.īy 1959, César Chávez had already established professional relationships with local community organizations that aimed to empower the working class population by encouraging them to become more politically active.

This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. They became allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee ( AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association ( NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers ( UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States.

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