April 23 marks 18 years since of the passing of Cesar Chavez. It was my privilege to work side-by-side with Cesar the last 20 years of his life and to lead the union he began upon his death. In the 1960s and ’70s, Cesar, like the rest of the UFW staff, made $5 a week plus room and board. He never earned more than $6,000 a year, never owned a house and left no money to his family. Cesar sometimes departed from his labor allies and even from his own constituency with unpopular stands. He came out against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He was an outspoken supporter of gay rights in the 1970s. He opposed penalizing employers for hiring undocumented workers and championed immigration reform as early as 1973. Cesar’s insistence on nonviolence drew dissent from some UFW staff and male strikers frustrated by slow progress of the grape strike. Some left the union during Cesar’s 25-day fast for nonviolence in 1968. His different vision for the UFW as a movement that produces for its members but that also transcends traditional trade unionism to embrace challenges workers face outside the job site was, and still is, bitterly attacked by his critics. Maybe that unique vision is why Sen. Robert Kennedy called Cesar "one of the heroic figures of our time" and why 40,000 people marched behind his casket. Today’s farm worker movement is still anchored in Cesar’s commitment to help farm workers and other poor Latino working people both at work and in the community.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers of America