The Crusades of Cesar Chavez

by Miriam Pawel

  Many admirers emulated Chavez, especially in La Paz, where he converted followers to his carrot juice regime and vegetarian diet. Increasingly, the movement became synonymous with the man. Supporters were Chavistas. Direct mail appeals carried the return address of “Cesar E. Chavez,” not the United Farm Workers. When he described his activities in conversations and reports, Chavez adopted the royal “we,”34 even when chronicling personal events: “During this period we spent two days at San Jose for a physical examination and some tests, and were hospitalized for four days. We also attended our parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.”

  His image helped in some circles and hurt in others. When Chavez met with labor leaders in Washington, D.C., to discuss a possible agreement with the Teamsters, Seafarers Union president Paul Hall lectured Chavez35 about the need to act like a labor leader, not a saint. “Get up off your fucking knees. Let’s not make it a cause. Let’s make it a fucking union,” Hall told Chavez. “We’ll buy you fucking knee pads if you want to fight a holy war.” If Chavez could move beyond fighting and consolidate his leadership, Hall said, he could play an influential role in the labor movement, comparable to civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. Be a labor leader, Hall urged Chavez, instead of “a fad—the poor man others can support to expiate their sins.”

  Some executive board members heard similar sentiments in their boycott cities and shared Hall’s concern. “We’re trying to build a union36 to better the lives of a lot of people, but we have to start thinking this is a business,” Richard Chavez said. “People say, ‘Cesar is a saint, he never was a union leader, he can’t administer, he should be a monk.’” Progressive unions in New York managed to help people with housing, retirement, and health care, too, but operated in more businesslike fashion, Richard pointed out. “In New York City I can’t get help with labor [leaders] because they’re turned off at Cesar.”

  Cesar did not much care what labor leaders in New York thought. He, too, was thinking about the future of his organization. But he envisioned growing in an entirely different direction. The UFW was strongest in faraway cities and weakest in its own backyard. Poor white people in the San Joaquin Valley, who should be natural allies in the struggle for economic justice, hated the union. Chavez wanted to win them over by including them in the union.

  “I’m proposing we should organize a PPU, for lack of a better name, a Poor Peoples Union,”37 he told the executive board at the end of 1974. Senior citizens on fixed incomes, who needed help, services, and community, would be his first target. Seniors could become dues-paying members of the PPU and use the credit union, the clinics, and the service center. Membership would be limited to those receiving some form of government aid, in order to keep out the middle class and avoid the problems that plagued the CSO. Members of a PPU local in Los Angeles, for example, might be eligible to move into a union-sponsored retirement community, which Chavez envisioned building in a rural area. The communal home would have a garden, grow food, and participate in a biweekly union-sponsored farmers market. His level of detail made the dreamy proposal sound almost convincing.

  “The potential to make real ardent followers and supporters, the potential to make a causa out of this, is fantastic,” he said. “Besides, we don’t have a choice . . . We’ve got to go out and organize those people, just for our own salvation.” He looked ahead to a time in the near future when the farmworker cause would become passé, once they won back contracts or succeeded in passing the state legislation he had committed to support. The union’s political power did not come from its members but derived from urban centers many thousands of miles away. A transition away from the boycott to a more straightforward labor union for farmworkers would jeopardize all that power.

  “The more we win, the weaker we’re going to get,” he warned the board. “The moment we pull our troops from the cities, back to our own, we lose power. We’re going to lose a hell of a lot of power . . . it’s borrowed.”

  Chavez followed up a few weeks later in a meeting with Fred Ross38 and directors of the Service Center and field offices. He suggested they issue plastic photo identification cards to senior citizens in exchange for a fifty-cent donation. He wanted to aim for a Poor Peoples Union convention in early spring of 1975, with a few hundred seniors from around the state, all eligible for social security and “not too middle class.” The majority should be Anglo and black, and not farmworkers. He hoped the convention would help restore the spirit of the early days of the union, the lure of being involved in the start of something big. He told the staff to read about Mao’s Long March.

  Chavez described himself as a pragmatic organizer; others viewed him as a grand dreamer. Part of his peculiar genius lay in his ability to see as realistic what others deemed improbable. Like many of his schemes, the Poor Peoples Union was both an impossible dream and a practical solution to a problem that Chavez accurately anticipated.

  For true believers, Chavez’s ambitious dreams were an inspiration. “In the midst of a desert of apathy, cynicism and self-centeredness, Cesar Chavez and the farm workers with him are a visible, believable, concrete sign that life can have meaning,39 that love is possible and that justice can be done,” Hartmire wrote to supporters.

  For skeptics, Chavez’s grand visions detracted from his effectiveness. “I admire him,” said George Meany, reaffirming his support for the UFW in the summer of 1974. “I think he’s an idealist.40 I think he’s a bit of a dreamer. I still admire him, but the thing that I’m disappointed about is that Cesar never got to the point that he could develop a real viable union . . . We’re not writing him off by any means.”

  More and more, people used the word saint in conversations and interviews. Chavez sometimes appeared slightly embarrassed, but he did not demur. He drew a distinction between saints and angels. Gandhi was difficult to work for, he said, and Martin Luther King Jr. was difficult to live with. He saw himself following in their footsteps, and he was indeed both hard to work for and hard to live with. “There is a big difference between being a saint and being an angel,” he told Sally Quinn41 of the Washington Post. “Saints are known for being tough and stubborn.”

  Chavez claimed to hate the public parts of his job, the awards and accolades, the need to make appearances to return favors. He said Helen made sure he did not get carried away by the idolatry. Those who knew Helen well concurred. (“The only ones who might scare him are God and his wife, Helen.42 But besides that, he’s not afraid of anyone,” Huerta said.)

  At home, Chavez said, “I am just like a plain human being. I get reminded of this constantly like at the house . . . I am just the same old guy,43 you know. She [Helen] lets me know that I am just Cesar, you know, not that public figure. She has an advantage. She is not part of it. She is removed from that public part and she lets me know very definitely who I am. I think that is sometimes, although I don’t enjoy it, it is a good thing, that reminder at home . . . to us he is just a plain old guy.”

  Chapter 26

  The End of the Nonviolent Viet Cong

  The whole fight’s going to change. Because once you’re recognized . . . then the essential fight of recognition . . . is no longer there. Then from that point on, you’re talking about wages, you’re talking about money, you’re talking about benefits.

  Near the end of the legislative session in the summer of 1974, Jerry Cohen called Chavez from Sacramento with big news: the union’s elections bill had passed the Assembly. Chavez said he felt sick to his stomach.1 Cohen quickly offered reassurance: the Teamsters would kill the measure in the Senate. Chavez, however, was thinking more long-term.

  From the start, Chavez’s response to even the most favorable laws governing union activity in the fields was one of great ambivalence. He had protested the exclusion of farmworkers from national labor laws, so he had no choice but to support the idea of a fair elections bill. But Chavez never relished the prospect of playing by someone else’s rules. Each legislative victory that he hailed in public, he bemoaned
in private, worried that a law would cramp his style and divert energy from his broader goals.

  His predicament had begun when he promised to push for legislation in exchange for accepting the AFL-CIO’s $1.6 million strike fund during the Coachella strike in 1973. Cohen was eating dinner at a Denny’s restaurant in back of the Date Tree Motel in Indio when Chavez cut the deal at another table. Afterward they went for a ride, and Chavez told Cohen to start drafting a measure that would set up a procedure for state-regulated elections in the field. The bill would be similar to the National Labor Relations Act but take into account the unique needs of seasonal farmworkers.

  Chavez acted to fulfill his commitment to the AFL-CIO, but he directed Cohen to delay as long as possible. Cohen met with labor leaders, worked on drafts, and played for time. By the end of 1973, when he met with the new UFW executive board, Chavez said he could stall no longer. Jack Henning, the secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, was pressing the UFW to introduce a measure early in the 1974 legislative session. The Teamsters and growers were drafting their own bills.

  The pressure came from many sides. Labor leaders wanted an end to the interunion fights and costly strikes. Growers wanted an end to the boycott. County officials were tired of the protests and mass arrests. Church and liberal leaders worried the movement was losing steam. The New York Times Magazine story had taken a toll. The 1960s were over, the protesters had moved on. In New York, Richard Chavez used to attract thousands to a rally on a few days’ notice; now if two hundred people showed up to support the boycott, he considered the event a success. “We’ve run out of time,”2 he said. “Let’s face it.”

  “How do we introduce a bill that we’re committed to but postpone it from getting through, and not draw suspicions?” Chavez asked.

  “One way to do it is to introduce a bill that can’t be passed,” Cohen responded. “See what reasonable sounding things we can put in there that are impossible.”

  Chavez liked that idea. “We should put a bill that if it passes, it’s damn good. Then we tell Henning, ‘No compromise. This is what we need.’”

  The bill Cohen and his legal staff drafted, AB 3370, included four provisions Chavez considered essential: elections only in peak season, when the most workers could vote; expedited elections first with objections heard afterward; a bargaining unit that included all agricultural workers; and the right to boycott. When Cohen asked whether they were willing to modify a section after the bill had been introduced, Chavez told him to hold firm.3 “They’re gonna kill everything,” he said confidently.

  When Cohen called with the news that the Assembly had actually passed AB 3370 on August 19, 1974, Chavez felt queasy. He realized the measure had little chance of surviving in the Senate and even less chance of being signed into law by Governor Reagan. But Chavez saw the inevitability of legislation. He needed time to prepare.

  The UFW was not in position to wage campaigns in the fields. The most sustained strike activity had been in Yuma, where the lemon strike cost more than $1.2 million and ended with no contracts. Most of the union’s energy had been directed toward the boycott, fund-raising, and events designed to build public and political support outside the fields, and in many cases outside California. Fighting for Our Lives, the documentary about the 1973 strike, had finally been completed, with a script written by Peter Matthiessen and narrated by Luis Valdez. The dramatic footage of Teamster confrontations, worker rallies, and arrests provided riveting propaganda. The union coordinated screenings to raise funds around the country. While thousands of people cheered as the Teamster goons were pilloried on the screen and Fighting for Our Lives received an Oscar nomination, tens of thousands of farmworkers worked under Teamster contracts. “If we don’t get those bastards out4 pretty soon, they’re going to start creating roots with those workers that they’re representing now,” Chavez warned.

  Much of Chavez’s brilliance as a tactician stemmed from his ability to respond quickly and decisively to external events. After their bill passed the Assembly, Chavez switched gears. The pressure to find a legislative solution to end the chaos in the fields had proved greater than he had anticipated. He foresaw that pressure would continue to build. He needed to stake out a negotiating position.

  “I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way we’re going to build a union . . . we don’t have to be defending every two years or every three years, is going to be through legislation,” he told the executive board in October 1974. “We have to introduce legislation5 again this coming year. We’re expected to and I think we have to. We introduced a little chickenshit bill [in 1974] that really didn’t amount to anything.” In 1975, he wanted to submit the most ambitious possible measure, a broad, sweeping farmworker bill of rights. He directed Cohen to draft a law that would include collective bargaining rights, unfair labor practices, even unemployment benefits for farmworkers. They would line up as much support as possible and fight hard for the measure, banking on the idea that they had crafted a bill too strong to pass.

  “Then in 1976, we’ll go directly to the voters in a referendum,” Chavez explained. In a presidential year, the turnout would be particularly high. An initiative would enshrine the farmworkers’ rights in the California constitution, so no successive legislature could undo the measure. “I think the voters will give it to us . . . what it means is, then we’ll start organizing workers left and right.”

  Huerta, who had the most experience with Sacramento lawmakers, cautioned Chavez they had better line up strong commitments in advance: “Once they start wheeling and dealing, they are liable to do anything.” Marshall Ganz was taken aback by Chavez’s shift and worried a law would change the nature of the movement. Chavez’s scenario would inevitably trap the union in political gamesmanship, he said: “When you make so much of your power dependent on legislation, that becomes the focus rather than the organizing and the other kind of work. You become so preoccupied with politics.”

  Chavez agreed, but he saw no alternative. “We’re like, isolated over here. We can win, but we can’t protect what we’ve won. If the law passes, you’re right, immediately, it’s a completely different ball game.”

  Jerry Brown was the Democratic candidate for governor on the November 1974 ballot and held a comfortable lead in the polls. Chavez sent Cohen to meet with Brown and seek a promise to veto any bill the union did not like. Brown was knowledgeable on the issues and vague on his commitment.

  When Brown won an easy victory, farmworkers’ rights suddenly took center stage in the state Capitol. Brown had helped the union as secretary of state during the “No on 22” campaign. He had joined UFW protests and endorsed AB 3370 (though not until Cohen dispatched his second in command to stage a sit-in at the candidate’s office). LeRoy Chatfield had worked on the Brown campaign and would join the new administration as a top aide. Labor leaders expected Brown would be sympathetic to their cause. Religious leaders had high hopes for the new governor, a former Jesuit seminarian.

  Brown did not disappoint. He devoted two paragraphs of his fifteen-paragraph inaugural address6 to the needs of farmworkers. He declared it was time to extend unemployment insurance to those who worked in the fields and “to extend the rule of law to the agriculture sector and establish the right of secret ballot elections for farmworkers.”

  Chavez dispatched a full-time staff person to Sacramento to track legislation, hunt down lawmakers on a moment’s notice, and keep Chavez informed of developments. He felt confident Brown would not sign a bill over the union’s objections. But he did not trust his own allies. Labor leaders, for one, would not fight to protect the UFW’s right to secondary boycotts, a tactic allowed no other union. “The problem is going to be our friends,”7 Chavez said repeatedly, anticipating they would pressure him to accept compromises. He asked Hartmire to start making the rounds of church groups to stress the importance of the union’s tough stance.

  Chavez also did not particularly want elections; he hoped that the growers would
be equally averse to the prospect and cut a deal. He planned to stress that setting up elections would be a complex and time-consuming task that would delay the end of the boycott, which was what mattered most to growers. On this one he misjudged. Growers were willing to take their chances with elections, and the governor viewed secret-ballot elections as a centerpiece of the law.

  The shift toward a legislative solution drove a change in the boycott, which now needed to pressure growers into accepting a good law rather than signing contracts. The grape and lettuce boycotts had built popular support and served as an ongoing nuisance but never had the same devastating economic impact as the first grape boycott in 1969. Lettuce was a staple, not a luxury item like grapes. Supporters were confused about which brands to boycott. The most promising target was Gallo wine, which had been added to the boycott list on the strength of its well-known name. The E. J. Gallo winery, which had signed with the UFW in 1967, had switched to the Teamsters in 1973.

  The Gallo boycott was popular with college students. Though the union had invested few resources, the campaign had proved surprisingly effective, judging from Gallo’s response. The company hired a public relations firm, took out newspaper ads, and paid representatives to stage informational counterpickets wherever the union appeared. Chavez liked the idea of focusing on Gallo for an easy win. “Just do one thing—go after Gallo.8 Nothing else,” he suggested to the board.

  In public, Chavez portrayed a different image. When the bishops’ committee came to California for a series of special meetings early in 1975, Chavez discussed the boycott and legislation but also talked at length about Yuma, claiming that three thousand lemon workers were still on strike. He predicted more strikes would occur and that the union would ultimately prevail. “Chavez presented a very forceful and self-confident picture9 of himself and the forces of their union,” concluded Roger Mahony, who had just been appointed auxiliary bishop of Fresno.