Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research

Organizational History

Farm workers (as opposed to farmers) have been necessary to agricultural development in the territory that is now the United States almost from the first contact between Europeans and the peoples of the Western Hemisphere. As early as the seventeenth century, there was an insufficient supply of stable and cheap farm labor available domestically to fulfill the needs of mass (plantation) agriculture. The need was filled from populations outside of North America, beginning with the use of prisoners as indentured workers in the British colonies, followed by the importation of Africans for slave labor. Commercial farming created a subjugated underclass of farm workers that continues to the present day. In nineteenth century California, farm labor was imported from China, Japan and South Asia. Later, it became more expedient to use laborers who came from Mexico to work in the booming industrial agricultural farms of the valleys (San Joaquin, Salinas and Imperial) of California.

The pay of these farm workers has historically been low and living conditions sub-standard. The work is seasonal, creating a migrant population of workers not tied to any particular community. Health care has often been virtually non-existent, let alone insured, and education for farm worker children often substandard when available. The children themselves have often been farm workers as well.

Many organizations, governmental, religious, social activist, have been concerned with improving the circumstances of farm workers. In addition to legislation and providing social services, these groups have seen union organizing as the most effective way for farm workers to achieve lasting improvement in working and living situations.

The abysmal conditions experienced by farm workers, every bit as bad as those of urban factory workers, would seem to be fertile ground for union organizing. Attempts to organize farm workers were made in the 1930s by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, in the 1940s by the National Farm Workers Union, and in the1950s by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO. These efforts were hindered by competition between unions, racism, and perceived competition between domestic and foreign workers. In addition, the sheer poverty of the workers made it difficult for them to financially support a union, and ignorance of the specific needs of migrant agricultural workers by union organizers more familiar with urban industrial workers reduced the effectiveness of organizing. There were also cultural misunderstandings between groups of workers and workers and organizers. The lack of a stable community was another exacerbating issue.

The enormous influence of commercial growers with politicians at both local and national levels in preventing better working conditions for farm workers cannot be overstated. Unionizing activity was particularly abhorred. Beginning in the 1940s, growers in California and the southwest successfully lobbied for the establishment of the bracero program that brought in farm workers from Mexico to work during harvests and returned them to Mexico when their labor was no longer needed. The terms of the bracero program provided labor at extremely low cost and no requirements (in practice) to provide even the most basic housing, health services and education for children. This system effectively made it impossible for unions to recruit membership and demand fair wages and working conditions.

Organization was finally achieved in the 1960s in California with the formation of the United Farm Workers National Union (UFW) under the leadership of Cesar Chavez. The early successes of the UFW were achieved by gathering sufficient support from the buying public to effectively boycott grapes and lettuce of California growers. These boycotts brought growers to the bargaining table. Throughout the 1970s the UFW made substantial gains in recruiting membership and obtaining better wages and housing for farm workers. The union worked to reduce the incidence of child labor in the fields, provide education to those children, and lobbied for legislation to control the use of pesticides in proximity to workers. Coupled with the sympathetic administration of California Governor Jerry Brown, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ARLB) was established to address the grievances of farm workers, unionized and non-unionized. The UFW, like unions in general, began to lose ground in the 1980s. A change in gubernatorial administration in California turned the ARLB into a hindrance rather than help in continuing efforts to organize farm workers. Most importantly, divisions within the UFW leadership caused that union to be less effective. The growers returned to dealing with labor contractors and recruiting labor from Mexico rather than deal with unions. After the death of Cesar Chavez in 1993, the UFW regrouped and refocused its activities. While many of the gains for farm workers in the 1970s were reduced or lost by the 1990s, the union itself remained a continuing force in the fight for farm worker rights.

The plight of farm workers remains almost as dire at the beginning of the 21st century as it was in the 19th. The same underlying causes for this situation remain as problems for farm workers in their struggle to achieve equitable wages and decent living conditions. The words of Father James L. Vizzard, S.J. are unfortunately truer in the globalized economy of the 21st century than when he said them in the 1964, "They (the growers) need to be made to understand in what century and in what kind of economy and society they are living and operating. They must be forced to realize that to exploit the poverty of other nations in order to beat down and crush the poor of our own country is the grossest kind of immorality."

From the guide to the Farm Worker Organizing Collections, 1948-1996, (Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research)

Organizational History

In October 1947, the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched the first in a series of hearings in Washington, D.C. to investigate communist influence in the motion picture industry. Writers, actors, directors, and other industry personalities were subpoenaed to appear before the Committee and commanded to "name names" to save themselves by betraying their colleagues. In April 1948, ten filmmakers, known as The Hollywood Ten, - producer/director Herbert Biberman, director Edward Dmytryk, producer/writer Adrian Scott and screenwriters Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, and Dalton Trumbo - were tried at the Federal court in Washington, D.C., convicted for contempt of Congress and given a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a fine of one thousand dollars. Those who defied HUAC were marked down on lists, known as the Hollywood Blacklist, which ruined their career for decades. Director Edward Dmytryk subsequently agreed to cooperate with the committee and was able to resume his career. He was the star witness in the committee's second round of investigations of Communist infiltration of Hollywood in 1951. In these hearings several other celebrities became "friendly witnesses" by confessing to past membership in the Communist Party and identifying colleagues and industry personalities and workers as past or present members of the Communist Party. As a result, more than three hundred working in the film industry were blacklisted by the industry's chief executives and the guilds and were able to find work only by going abroad or to Mexico and/or using pseudonyms. The blacklist tactic was employed not only in the entertainment industry but also affected hundreds of people in other lines of work, such as government employment, education, labor unions, and the private sector.

From the guide to the The Hollywood Blacklist, 1947-2002, (Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research)

Collection History

The Union Files Collection was created by Southern California Library founder Emil Freed and labor activist and California CIO President James L. Daugherty. Both men were committed to advancing the union movement of the 20th century and had the foresight to see the value of preserving the materials of that movement. The collection materials were obtained by Freed, Daugherty and other activists, organizers and supporters of unions and working people.

From the guide to the Union Files Collection, 1920s-1980s, (Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research)

Organizational History

ILGWU

The International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) was founded in New York City on June 3, 1900 by representatives from seven local East Coast unions. The union represented both male and female workers who produced women's clothing. Though affiliated with the more conservative American Federation of Labor for most of its history, the ILGWU was unusual in representing both semi-skilled and unskilled (or automated) workers. The first ILGWU local in Los Angeles was founded in 1907 and lasted only a few months. The first lasting local was founded in 1910 or 1911. By 1924 Los Angeles was the fourth largest garment center in the United States. Starting with the skilled Cloak and Suitmakers, primarily Jewish and Italian men, the union expanded into the largely female and Latina dressmakers. However, this expansion was rocky. In 1933, ILGWU President David Dubinsky sent Rose Pesotta to Los Angeles to organize the dressmakers. The union continued to grow and expand through the 1940s. Changes in the industry (the growth of the sportswear industry, the decline of the suit industry and the increase in the practice of section sewing where workers completed only a single portion of a garment) created increased challenges for the union. The failure to organize the mostly Latina swimsuit, sportswear and casual clothes workers and to make use of Spanish-speaking organizers came to a head in 1949, with a call for a Spanish-speaking local. The ILGWU also became involved in anti-Communism activities. The union went into a decline in the 1950s-1970s. In 1972 Miguel Machuca, who in 1981 became the Western States Organizing Director, began organizing his fellow employees at the California Swimwear Company. From the 1970s on, the union has had to face INS (the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service) raids, growing numbers of South and Central American and Asian workers, increasing union resistance by employers, the growth of small fly-by-night shops, and an increasing tendency for manufacturers to outsource (send garments to countries with cheaper workforces for completion).

In July 1995 the ILGWU merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU)) to become the Union of Needle trades, Industrial and Textile Employees or UNITE.

Project

In the mid-1980s, the Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research (SCL) pursued a project on the history of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in Los Angeles. Library staff Sarah Cooper and Mary Tyler, in collaboration with John Laslett, a member of the SCL Board and a professor of history at UCLA, had decided that the Library's commitment to documenting labor history in Southern California could best be served by focusing attention on a very large (at the time) industry in Los Angeles and its union history. To that end, SCL applied for and received a grant from the California Council for the Humanities to research the history of and organize a public symposium about the ILGWU in Los Angeles. The symposium, co-sponsored by the ILGWU Western States Region, was held on June 6, 1987, at the ILGWU building at 675 South Park View (near MacArthur Park) in Los Angeles. Among the speakers were Professor Rodolfo Acuña of the Chicano Studies Department at California State University, Northridge, ILGWU Western States Region Director Steve Nutter, and local ILGWU organizers Miguel Machuca and Tony Orea. Dorothy Doyle, an SCL Board Member and ILGWU Project Interviewer, and Mary Tyler, whose SCL assignment for several months was researching and writing a preliminary sketch of ILGWU history in Los Angeles, presented a slide show on the union's history. Because of the success of the symposium, SCL expanded the project to include publishing a book on the ILGWU in Los Angeles, co-authored by Laslett and Tyler. Ten Star Press published the book, The ILGWU in Los Angeles, 1907-1988, in 1989.

From the guide to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) Project Files, 1914-1993, (Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research)

Collection History

The materials in the collection were assembled by Library founder Emil Freed. He gathered the papers and ephemera of organizations dedicated to human rights, social justice, peace and working people to preserve a record of 20th century social activism.

From the guide to the 20th Century Organizational Files, 1912-1980s, (Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research)