Cesar Chavez was the leader of the United Farm Workers (UFW). He led the famous Delano Grape Workers Strike that lasted five years. Many Latinos admire him for his organizing skills. He died in 1966. However he was not very successful in his endeavors.
His supporters say his work led to numerous improvements for union laborers. His birthday, March 31, has become César Chávez Day, a state holiday in three US states. Many parks, cultural centers, libraries, schools, and streets have been named in his honor in cities across the United States.
The truth is that farm worker are still woefully underpaid. It is well-known that many are illegal aliens because the United States does not have a program for allowing Mexicans into the country for picking food.
A UC Davis report on harvesting strawberries says, “Harvesters in 1996-97 were reportedly paid $4.50 to $4.70 an hour in the Watsonville-Salinas area, plus $0.65 to $0.75 a tray.” While choices.org includes this paragraph in their article about strawberry harvesting.
“Core tasks of picking and plant cleaning must be performed while bending, kneeling (usually with one knee on the raised bed), or crouching. Workers use both hands to gently grab, twist, and snap off the berries they select. Although they shift from one side of the row to the other, occasionally stand up for a breather, and often change positions in other ways, most of their picking time is spent in postures that are widely seen as physically demanding. Union leaders and other worker advocates have expressed great concern about long-term effects of these postures and workers’ repetitive task motions on their bodies, especially backs. Bills that they have sponsored in the California legislature would prohibit “weeding, thinning, and hot-capping in a stooped, kneeling, or squatting position” (i.e., by hand), except in narrowly defined circumstances. A petition to similarly restrict these activities through administrative regulation is under consideration by a Cal/OSHA advisory committee.”
The legal Latino population is a primary group supporting Barack Obama. To further seal that group to the Democratic Party the president visited the Cesar Chavez home and declared it a national monument.
Walter P. Reuther was one of America’s great labor leaders. Reuther was president the United Automobile Workers union (UAW) between 1946 and 1970. Under his leadership played the union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic party, including the civil rights and anti-Communist movements. The UAW was especially known for gaining high wages and pensions for the auto workers. As a prominent figure in the anti-Communist left, he was a founder of the Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. He became president of the CIO in 1952, and negotiated a merger with George Meany and the American Federation of Labor immediately after, which took effect in 1955. In 1949 he led the CIO delegation to the London conference that set up the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in opposition to the Communist-dominated World Federation of Trade Unions. He had left the Socialist party in 1939, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s was a leading spokesman for liberal interests in the CIO and in the Democratic party. Walter Reuther appears in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. There is no national monument honoring this man!
Groveling for votes. Can Barack Obama sink any lower?
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