UFW DOCUMENTATION PROJECT ONLINE DISCUSSION June 2004 Pilar (Pamela) Pederson, 6/1/04 RE: Volunteerism vs. Staff Salaries OK. I'm finally weighing in on this discussion. I am now 50. My years with the Farmworkers were from ages 17 - 19(1971-1973). I was “ in charge" of the Coachella hiring hall the summer of 1973 - the year that the Teamsters invaded. I am still connected with the Mexican people and am listening avidly to this conversation. I find much of what I read surprising but not shocking. Like all of us, I have spent much time examining these experiences since I left. As young and as middle class as I was, the pay rate for volunteers fit my need to serve, and if I wanted something more I could get it from home. I assumed & observed that folks with higher needs (families, attorneys, leadership) got those needs taken care of in the most modest sense of that word. I worked mostly in the field offices and felt largely unaffected by what went on in La Paz. I see great value in this conversation. I hear hard questions being asked and little which sounds derogatory or disloyal to the ideals we were working for. I hear sadness and disappointment that the work wasn't completed and gratitude to have learned from such great and inspirational leaders. Two topics draw me into this conversation: the first is the issue of seniority and hiring. Farm workers travel in units, mostly comprised of families. They need to go to work with those they are hooked up with; to get a ride in a car, or to be part of their functional group. Arbitrary systems based on numbers just don't work. Why did we try so hard to centralize the authority of who could work where? Why didn't we empower our ranch committees to decide who was going to start work first? They, after all, knew the individuals: who had been longest with the Union or the particular ranch. They knew who needed to work in such-and-such a group for family or transportation reasons. Why did we take all the flack and animosity of the workers upon the Union hiring hall when there were very viable committees to whom we could delegate this hard and important task? They needed the power and could have best deflected the heat. Can somebody answer my question? I came to see this issue of hiring as a revolutionary role for the UFW. Replacing the contratistas with a fair hiring practice, emanating from our Union hiring halls, is a vision which I haven't let go of. Had we succeeded, I feel history might have been written differently. As honored as I am that I was put in charge of the Coachella hiring hall in 1973, I was far too young and inexperienced to do the job well, and didn't stand up to the pressure. We had replaced union seniority with company seniority, and it went over about as poorly as Marshall describes the former. It was excruciating for me to feel the anger of the workers upon whom I was implementing yet another arbitrary and hard-to-fathom hiring system! The other is how we enforced our contracts and treated the growers. I watched and admired a few true professionals who treated the growers in an even and respectful manner. Eliseo Medina comes to mind. Unfortunately, there weren't enough people enforcing contracts with the emphasis of fairness to all parties in the field offices where I worked. The culture that trained me had a more instinctive and reactive emphasis. It was easy to emulate at the time, but in retrospect I do not feel it was effective in building a trade union to represent farm workers' rights in perpetuity. Most of those I lived with and learned from were first-hand recipients of repression. They taught me to disrespect and disregard the growers. And in Coachella - in my experience - we did. This is not a criticism of the Union, but a reflection on the reality of those times. Many talented leaders were off organizing boycotts. I feel that contract enforcement and field office work were just one of the too many demands on our young union. There were many wonderful people in the field offices. But I am unhappy when I remember how I was taught to react to the growers. We treated them as we felt they deserved. And that was not with respect. After I left the Union I came to understand the value of a professional, mature attitude in dealing with one’s adversaries. In the heat of a legacy of generations of oppression it is easy to understand how the early Union field office directors and their organizers felt and acted the way they did. Only strong leadership and modeling could have precluded our behavior. The growers, interested in their bottom line, had no place to go but to the Teamsters. 3 years of contracts with us were enough. Please understand that I'm speaking only about Coachella 1972- 73. Watching people transform into believing in themselves, in their power to act collectively and individually was a pivotal experience of my young life. I don't know what is happening in the agricultural fields of California today, and I would love to know. It is so great to be able to chime in on this conversation. All these stored thoughts of 30 years' making I have kept to myself. What is missing is input from the workers themselves. I am raptly reading every letter, chewing on the observations and gratefully putting events into sequence. Sincerely, Pilar (Pamela) Pedersen PS: Does anyone know of the whereabouts of Roberto Garcia? Barbara Macri, 6/1/04 RE: Paid Reps So Marshall, In any Union it is about control and the balance of power - such things are usually solidified, lost or changed at the convention. As I recall, you already had two sure votes on the Board, and you were looking to the convention to pick up a few more. With enough votes I truly believe that you felt you would be in the driver's seat, i.e. have enough votes to change the Union's course or in other words, "take over the union." Your biggest mistake was that you underestimated Cesar and the love, loyalty and respect that the workers had for him. Cesar gave so many farm workers their dignity. They were not about to change horses in midstream, even if a few of their own from Salinas were trying to sell them a bill of goods. You know, to this day, what the workers remember and appreciate most about the Union and Cesar is that through the Union they claimed their dignity. We can argue about everything else, but if there is one thing we did right, we elevated the farm workers and made both the growers and the public see them for what they are - human beings - and respect them for the work they do -- harvesting the food that we all eat. Every now and then I run into retired farm workers, and they love to tell their war stories, just like we have been doing on this list serve. And you know invariably, the subject always comes back to dignity. That is what has stayed in their hearts and has meant the most to them. I said it once and I will say it again. We ought to use this opportunity to share some of the good things we witnessed or did in the Union that impacted our lives and the lives of those around us, and in effect made this world a little better place. Marshall, I wish you well, and I pray that one day you will be able to let go of the bitterness, frustration and disappointments, so that some day you will be able to appreciate your own contribution to the Union, as well as the contributions of the rest of the volunteers, the farm workers and the leadership of the Union, including Cesar. Si se puede! Barbara Jerry Brown, 6/1/04 RE: Memorial Day/ Naji Daifullah Dear Elaine, What a beautiful story and fitting memorial. While focusing on winning the grape boycott and union contracts, the union inspired farm workers, volunteers and supporters across the country 2 alike, by being a living example of solidarity among all people – from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds. After Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968 and black power advocates alienated many Anglos from the civil rights movement, Cesar and the union showed the country that, yes, we can all get along, and that nonviolence still works. Back in ’66 in Delano, I remember jumping into a car with several farm worker organizers to rush off to the DiGiorgio ranch on the rumor that the ranch foreman was dismantling the tiny altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe, which the union priests had placed along the roadside in the back of a station wagon. After inviting the DiGiorgio strikebreakers to evening prayers, we always got a lot of organizing done. But during that car ride out to the altar, I must admit the thought did cross my mind. What would my Jewish grandmother think if I died defending the Virgin of Guadalupe? Oy Veh! In solidarity, Jerry Brown (Delano, Toronto, Miami, 1966-1976) Wren Bradley, 6/1/04 RE: Volunteerism v. Staff Salaries Yes, Roberto Garcia is alive and well still in Salinas. He works for Sun Street Center, a drug and alcohol recovery program[.] * * * His wife and their three kids, Roberto Jr., Raul and Minnie are all doing well.