https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/opinion/cesar-chavez-sexual-abuse-allegations-biographer.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

#CesarChavez #UFW

Today in Labor History March 31, 1927: Cesar Chavez was born. Famous for his role in leading the United Farm Workers and, now, even more infamous for his sexual assaults on women and girls in the movement, it should be pointed out that there were numerous other abusive and rotten aspects to his leadership style that affected both women and men. For example, in 1967, he launched his first of several purges of the UFW, ostensibly to remove Communists. However, there was no evidence of communist infiltration of the union and it was most likely a move to solidify his autocratic rule.

In the 1970s, he blamed “illegal immigrants” and “wetbacks” for UFW failures and launched the "Illegals Campaign" to identify illegal migrants so that they could be deported. His cousin Manuel Chavez established a UFW patrol, or "wet line," along Arizona's border with Mexico to stop illegal migration into the US. Actions such as these led to conflicts with many progressive groups that had previous collaborated with the UFW, including the National Lawyers Guild and the Confederation of Mexican Workers.

In 1977, Chavez became infatuated with the religious cult, Synanon and used Synanon’s “game” to punish union members and enforce conformity and obedience to his authority by subjecting members to harsh, profanity-laced criticism from the rest of the community.

He also expressed support for the brutal Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and specifically his declaration of martial law, which alienated Filipino members of the union, as well as many of the religious organizations that had supported the UFW. Ironically, Chavez had originally travelled to the Philippines in order to win back support of Filipino farmworkers. And, contrary to the official mainstream narrative, it wasn’t even Chavez who had started the UFW, or the Delano Grape Strike. Rather the 1965 grape strike had been initiated by Larry Itliong and the Filipino-led AWOC. The nationwide protest lasted five years and ended with the first union contract for U.S. farm workers outside of Hawaii.

You can read more about the Filipino roots of the farm workers labor movement here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2026/03/25/larry-itliong-and-the-filipino-roots-of-the-united-farm-workers-movement/

#LaborHistory #workingclass #CesarChavez #FarmWorkers #ufw #chicano #mexicanamerican #union #strike #boycot #filipino #hungerstrike #communism

@viacampesina

C̷e̷s̷a̷r̷ ̷C̷h̷a̷v̷e̷z̷ Farmworkers’ Day March 31st 2026

https://19thnews.org/2026/03/women-farmworker-movement-cesar-chavez/

#DoloresHuerta #farmworkers #labourmovement #organize #SíSePuede
#solidarity #UFW #unions #venceremos #viaCampesina #WeFeedYou

History of Farm Worker Organizing in the U.S. Part II: The IWW

Farmworker organizing has a long and radical history that precedes both Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW). In 1903, the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) tried to organize in the sugar beet fields of Oxnard, California. It was the first agricultural union in California to unite workers across different ethnic groups. However, Samual Gompers, leader of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), demanded the exclusion of the Japanese workers in order to get AFL affiliation. Mexican workers refused to break ranks and maintained solidarity with their Japanese comrades. The JMLA, which won many of their demands, did not last long after this strike.

In contrast to the AFL, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has organized all workers, regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, immigration status, or skill level since 1905. Like other unions, they seek to improve living and working conditions in the here and now. But unlike the AFL, or the UFW, they also fight to overthrow the wage system, abolish bosses, and create a classless society free of capitalist exploitation. The bosses hated and feared them, routinely using vigilantes, cops, Pinkertons, and National Guards to suppress their organizing efforts and strikes.

Fresno Free Speech Fight (1910)

One of the IWW’s first major agricultural battles was the Fresno Free Speech Fight (1910-1911). It was the first Free Speech fight in California and it began as an attempt to organize agricultural workers. But when the city started arresting organizers for public speaking, Wobblies (IWW members) came from across the country to join the fight and fill the city’s jails. They were so successful that the sheriff eventually got fed up and refused to accept any more prisoners. By March 1911, the city backed down and allowed the IWW to agitate freely on its streets.

Frank Little helped lead the Fresno Free-Speech fight. He was a Cherokee miner and a gifted IWW union organizer who helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques used decades later by the Civil Rights movement and by the UFW. Throughout his short life, Little organized oil workers, timber workers, miners, and migrant farm workers in California. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” In 1917, vigilantes lynched him in Butte, Montana.

During the Fresno Free Speech fight, Little served nearly a month in jail, with half of it in solitary confinement for refusing to work in the yard with other prisoners. He said he preferred the dark cell to forced labor, and that doing unpaid prison work was tantamount to being a scab. (From the “Industrial Worker” October 8, 1910). As many as 80 Wobblies were jailed with him, many also refusing to work. They sang union songs to keep up morale, prompting the Sheriff to get the fire department to flood their cells with water. They even made a sign that said “No duck shooting on this lake.”

Organizing the California Hop Fields (1913)

In 1913, the IWW organized 2,000 migrant hop pickers at Durst Ranch, in Wheatland, California, the state’s largest agricultural employer. Conditions were deplorable. Workers had to pay 75 cents per week to sleep outside in tents, where temperatures often reached triple digits. Toilets overflowed with human excrement and were covered with flies. And the closest drinking water was a mile away. Workers earned less than $1.50 per 12-hour day, half of what those on neighboring farms earned. Durst also held 10% of each worker’s wages until the end of harvest, to discourage them from quitting early.

Not surprisingly, discontent erupted once the actual terms of their employment and living conditions became clear. In August 1, workers created an IWW local at Durst Ranch. They chose Richard "Blackie" Ford to be their spokesman. They demanded an immediate raise; the right to clean and weight their own hops (so the bosses could no longer rip them off by under weighing them); drinking water to be provided in the fields; sanitary toilet facilities; and other reforms.

Durst responded by firing Ford and the other Wobblies on the strike committee. Ford and the others refused to leave the property. Instead, they called a mass meeting, with speakers talking to the crowd in their native German, Greek, Italian, Arabic, and Spanish. The overwhelming majority voted to strike.

The Wheatland Hop Riot

Durst organized a posse of vigilantes that included Yuba County District Attorney Edward Manwell, Marysville Sheriff George Voss, and several deputy sheriffs. They tried to arrest Ford, but the workers intervened. A cop fired a shotgun into the air to disperse the crowd. The crowd responded by attacking Manwell and Deputy Lee Anderson. The cops began shooting wildly into the crowd. Manwell, Deputy Sheriff Eugene Reardon, a Puerto Rican hop picker, and an English hop picker died, quite possibly all from police fire, as the workers were unarmed.

Governor Johnson sent the National Guard, who supported the police as they arrested 100 migrant workers. They attempted to force prisoners to testify against the strike leaders by starving and tortured them. One prisoner hanged himself. Ultimately, they issued arrest warrants for Blackie Ford and another Wobbly, Herman Suhr, on murder charges.

The trial was totally rigged, with a judge who was a close friend of one of the victims. And eight of the twelve jurors were farm owners who were biased against the IWW. The defense tried to get the trial moved to a different county that was less hostile to the defendants, but their request was denied. No witnesses saw either Suhr or Ford with a gun. And defense witnesses said that the shots which killed the cops had been fired by the dead Puerto Rican picker, who had seized Deputy Reardon's gun during the scuffle. Nevertheless, the jury convicted Ford and Suhr of second-degree murder. They both got life sentences. Two other Wobblies were acquitted.

In spite of the repression, the stature of the IWW grew among farm workers. By the end of 1914, there were 5,000 Wobblies in California, with forty locals throughout the state. Blackie Ford was paroled in 1924, but rearrested and charged him with Riordon’s murder. This time the jury acquitted him. Soon after, the governor pardoned Herman Suhr.

Agricultural Workers Organization

In 1915, the IWW created the Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO) in Kansas City, Missouri. Their demands included: adequate food and housing for farm workers; a 10-hour workday; a $4.00 minimum wage; and free transportation to long-distance jobsites. By utilizing a system of roving “field” delegates, organizers signed up thousands of new members within their first two years. The roving delegates would board freight trains and demand that hobos prove IWW membership by showing their Red Cards. Anyone who couldn’t produce a Red Card was given the choice of signing up on the spot or being kicked off the train. The delegates also served as organizers and presented grievances to the ranch foremen and owners. And they had the authority to call a strike against farmers who did not resolve their grievances. Between 1915 and 1917, the IWW/AWO organized over 100,000 migratory farm workers throughout the Midwest and western United States.

Organizing in the Yakima Valley

The IWW was already active in the Pacific Northwest, primarily in timber and mining. However, by the summer of 1910, they were organizing migrant farm workers in Eastern Washington. In July 1910, the police arrested IWW members John W. Foss and Joseph Gordon for speaking on a street corner in downtown Yakima, even though they had a permit to do so. While in jail, they were fed a diet of bread and water and forced to carry a ball and chain. In 1915, they created a Yakima branch of the AWO. But the mass arrests and vigilante violence against them continued. On July 9, 1917, federal troops raided their Yakima Union Hall, arresting 24 Wobblies for their opposition to World War I.

The Battle at Congdon Orchards

The IWW continued to be active for decades in the Yakima Valley, but accomplished little in the 1920s. However, things heated up again in the1930, when hop pickers began fighting for an eight-hour work day, an end to child labor, and a minimum wage of 35 cents per hour, for women and men, alike. At the time, most growers were paying only 10 cents per hour for men, and 8 cents for women. In August, 1933, they went on strike in Saleh and at Congdon Orchard. The owners organized vigilantes, who attacked the picketers with clubs and other weapons. And the police jailed 61 Wobblies. The next day, the National Guard destroyed the hobo camps where they were living and built a stockade of wood and barbed wire for their prisoners. They also mounted 30 caliber machine guns at major intersections. Whenever prisoners were released from the stockade, vigilantes would kidnap them, beat them, and tar and feather them. The violence and legal repression ultimately broke the strike.

Conclusion

The IWW had a major influence on farm labor organizing in the 20th century by demonstrating that it was possible to effectively organize unskilled, immigrant laborers that the mainstream unions, like the AFL, considered unorganizable. Though they weren’t the first to organize across multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-linguistic groups, they were one of the largest and most effective at it. And they pioneered many tactics that would be used by future farm labor organizers, including Cesar Chavez and the UFW, like signing up workers in the fields and on trains, and using tactics like direct action and civil disobedience to pressure employers.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #strike #union #farm #immigration #ufw #cesarchavez #freespeech #censorship #police #prison #directaction #civildisobedience

With the Day formerly known as Cesar Chavez Day just around the corner, and all the hand-wringing and virtue-signaling by public officials about how we must now delete the man from history, it seems an appropriate time to remind folks that farmworker organizing has a long and radical history that precedes both Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW), that unions and movements are far more than their leaders, and that what we think know about these leaders is often biased and corrupted through hagiography and movement propaganda.

Let’s start with the origin of the UFW, which many people mistakenly believe was the sole creation of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and that it was a primarily a Mexican and Chicano union. In reality, the UFW was created in August, 1966, when Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) merged with the largely Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), led by Larry Itliong. The collaboration of these two unions grew out of the 5-year-long Delano Grape Strike which, again, people tend to associate with Chavez and the UFW, but which was actually started by Itliong and the AWOC.

Who Was Larry Itliong?

Modesto “Larry” Itliong was born in the Philippines in 1913, when it was a territory of the U.S., seized from Spain during the Spanish-American War. He immigrated to the U.S. mainland in 1929 at the age of 15, in the first large wave of Filipino immigration to the continental United States that occurred between 1906 and 1934. Itliong lived much of his life in the Little Manila community of Stockton, California. He had wanted to become a lawyer, but poverty and violent racism prevented him from pursuing the education required. At the time, Filipinos were barred from owning land in the U.S. and from marrying white women under the anti-miscegenation laws, and were regularly attacked by racist mobs.

Itliong began working in California’s Central Valley, where he joined his first strike in 1930, at the age of 16. Soon after, he began organizing his fellow workers. In 1956, he founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union, in Stockton. He spoke several Filipino languages, as well as Spanish, Cantonese, and Japanese, which was useful in organizing the muti-lingual, multi-cultural farmworkers. In addition to organizing in California, he also organized cannery and agricultural unions in Washington, Montana, South Dakota, and Alaska, where he lost three fingers in a cannery accident, earning him the nickname “Seven Fingers.”

On September 7, 1965 Itliong, who now had nearly 3 decades of labor organizing experience, traveled to Delano, California and convinced the grape workers at Filipino Hall to vote for a strike. The next day, the Delano Grape Strike began, with over 2,000 Filipino farm laborers walking off the job, demanding $1.40 an hour, 25 cents a box, and the right to form a union.

Itliong led the strike, along with Philip Cera Cruz, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco. Historically, the growers would pit workers of different nationalities against each other, and use Mexican workers, specifically, as scabs to break strikes by the militant Filipino workers. This time, however, Itliong contacted Cesar Chavez and asked him to get the Mexican workers to support the strike.

Initially, Chavez didn’t believe his members were ready to go on strike. But when he, and Dolores Huerta, brought the proposal to their 1,000 members, they voted unanimously to join AWOC on the picket line. The following year, AWOC and NFWA merged to form the UFW.

Itliong served as assistant director of the UFW under Chavez’s leadership. However, as the nascent union grew, with the charismatic and media-savvy Chavez leading press conferences, fasts and marches, its public face became overwhelmingly Chicano. Consequently, the Filipino workers who had started the strike, who had been organizing in the Central Valley since the 1930s, were increasingly marginalized within their union. Leadership often excluded them from decision-making, and their needs as an aging, largely male, immigrant workforce were not always prioritized. In 1971, Itliong resigned from the UFW over these issues and because of Chavez's autocratic leadership.

Some have argued that the ¡Sí Se Puede! slogan, the imagery of la causa (e.g., the UFW black eagle logo), the connection to the broader Chicano movement, all served to create a narrative that was far more tangible and palatable to the mainstream press, and the white public, than one that included Filipino workers, language and culture, a demographic that was much less well known to white Americans. This, no doubt, contributed to the erasure of Itliong and Filipino workers from the history of the farm labor movement. California K-12 textbooks failed to mention Itliong, or Filipino farmworkers until 2016, fifty years after the strike that began with Filipino workers, also contributing to their erasure from history.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #farmworkers #ufw #immigration #filipino #mexican #larryitliong #cesarchavez #doloreshuerta #organizing #strike #racism

How to Harden #Security of #VPS Server

This article demonstrates how to harden security of VPS server and is intended for server administrators.
Ultimate Guide to Harden Security of a VPS Server
Securing a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is not a one-time task—it’s an ongoing discipline. Whether you’re hosting websites, applications, databases, or client workloads, a hardened VPS dramatically ...
Continued 👉 https://blog.radwebhosting.com/harden-security-of-vps-server/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon.social #ufw #certbot #firewalld #rockylinux #letsencrypt