ode to dolores huerta

OUR FIRST STRIKE

from Cesar Chavez’s “The Organizer’s Tale” (1966)

Our first strike was in May, 1965, a small one but it prepared us for the big one. A farmworker from McFarland names Epifano Camacho came to see me. He said he was sick and tired to how people working the roses were being treated, and he was willing to “go the limit.” I assigned Manuel and Gilbert Padilla to hold meetings at Camacho’s house. The people wanted union recognition, but the real issue, as in most cases when you begin, was wages. For grafting roses, they were promised $9.00 a thousand, but they were actually getting $6.50 and $7.00. Most of them signed cards giving us the right to bargain for them.

We chose the biggest company with about 85 employees, not counting the irrigators and supervisors, and we held a series a meetings to prepare the strike and call the vote. There would be no picket line; everyone pledged on their honor not break the strike.

Early on the first morning of the strike, we sent out ten cars to check the people’s homes. We found lights in five or six homes and knocked on the doors. The men were getting up and we’d say, “Where are you going?” They would dodge, saying “Oh, uh … I was just getting up, you know.” We’d say, “Well, you’re not going to work, are you?” And they’d say, “No.”

Dolores Huerta, who was driving the green panel truck, saw a light in one house where four rose-workers lived. They told her they were going to work, even after she reminded them of their pledge. So she moved the truck so it blocked their driveway, turned off the key, put it in her purse and sat there alone.

That morning the company foreman was madder than hell and refused to talk to us. None of the grafters has shown up for work. At 10:30 we started to go to the company office, but it occurred us that maybe a woman would have a better chance. So Dolores knocked on the office door, saying, “I’m Dolores Huerta from the National Farm Workers Association.” “Get out!” the man said, “You communist … Get out!” I guess they were expecting us, because as Dolores stood arguing with him, the cops came and told her to leave. She left.

For two days, the fields were idle. On Wednesday, they recruited 35 Filipinos from out of town who knew nothing of the strike. They drove through escorted by three sheriff’s patrol cars, one in front, one in the middle and one at the rear with a dog. We didn’t have a picket line, but we parked across the street and just watched them go through, not saying a word. All but seven stopped working after half an hour, and the rest had quit by mid-afternoon.

The company made an offer the evening of the fourth day, a package deal that amounted to a 120% wage increase.

Dolores Huerta in 1965.