A section of the poorest and most oppressed workers in the United States has been waging a bitter struggle since April of this year against the combined might of the multi-million dollar agricultural industry of Calfornia (which employs one out of every seven workers in the state) and the largest trade union in the advanced capitalist world.
On 7 October they won an important battle, when the 2 million strong international Brotherhood of Teamsters dropped its attempt to smash the United Farm Workers Union (AFLCIO), and left the organisation of the workers in the Californian grape fields to the smaller union, UFW On the face of it the UFW had little chance Their membership consists mainly of Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American migratory workers, who have Tot years been forced lo accept intolerable conditions and abysmal wages. The bovely composite wage of farmworkers in the United States is about 1.42 dolars (57p.) - aboul 429 cl an average factory worker's wage, But this does not give a complete picture: last year 2.8 million farmworkers worked an average of only N& days. and their avorag: yearly income was 1,160 dollaTs (E460) These facts are eloquent testimony to the situation in which a section of the American working class which has never been able to build a permancat trade union is placed. In 1965 the UFW launched a strugele for unionisation which was finally victorious in July 1970. A decisive weapon in this fight was the organisation of a boycott of Californian grapes throughout the US. in the course nf which sections of left-wing and liberal opinion were mobilised in support of the fariworkers. So drastically did grape såles plumaer that the growers eventually gave in. They recognised the UFW and signed contracts which conceded much improved wages and working conditions. But when the contracts ran out this year the UFW was suddenly faced with a major scabbing operation by the Teamsters. Out of the 187 contracts held by the UFW 150 growers signed with the Teamslers instead, and in the end the UFW was left with only 12 contracts. This not only undermined the abilty of the UFW 10 fight for the rape workers, it posed the very destruction of the Union, since its finances are bused on a check-off system under which the employers deduct dues at source on behalf of the Union. The Teamsters scab operation thus cut dues-paying membership from 80,000 to 6,500. TEAMSTER SCABBING The growers and the Teamster bureaucrats claimed that the grape workers had petitioned to join the Teamsters, but they refused the UFW demand for a ballot of the workers, and journalists such a Vincent Hanna of this country's Sunday Times found the petitions which they produced of doubtful authority. The Teamsters" contracts were slahtly less favourable to the farmworkers in terms of wages and fringe bencdits than the UFW contracts, but the UFW had introduced two important innovations into the industry. First, they actually enforced their contracts, while the Teamsters could he relied upon to be 'flexible' ovET such expensive stems as restrictions on the use of poisonous chemicals, and the provision of toilet facilities and drinking water for workers.
The second, and more important innovation was the introduction of the Union hiring ball. Until 1970 workers were hired by a middle man, called a labour contractor or "straw boss." He ensured that only the youngest, fittest and most supplant workers were hired, and that they worked at the highest possible pitch. The UFW hiring hall ensured that johs were distributed under a seniority system which favoured, rather than discriminated against, the older workers and ensured that work was kept down to their pace.
The growers had chafed for three years under this incursion on their rights to own and control the labour power of the workeis, and grabbed with both hands at the opportunity to sign up with the Teamsters, who guaranteed the abolition of the hiring hall SOCIAL MOVEMENT le cowd Be bo more dranate contrast than that between the UFW, with its full-time staff paid tive dollars per week plus keep, and che Teamsters, with its flash organisers driving around the grape ficids in expensive cars. But in fact the UFW holds up to the Teamsters a mirror of its own past.
The UFW is more than a union — it is a broad social movement which has spilled over from the Chicano (Mexican-American) struggle against their exploitation and oppression, and expressed their feclings of national identity. The Teamsters were built through just such a broad social movement.
DENOUNCE A member of the Swedish technical aid corps,