Statement from the Farm Worker Movement:
Remembering farm worker champion David Burciaga
He worked with farm worker movement leaders, including Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla, beginning in the 1950s. For many years he served as the United Farm Workers’ chief negotiator, working with farm workers and bargaining with growers to hammer out important union contracts in the 1970s and ‘80s. David P. Burciaga, 88, passed away on Nov. 29, 2011, after spending many decades selflessly advancing the cause of farm workers and Latinos.
He didn’t have much formal education but was very smart and could learn anything, recalls longtime friend and colleague Gilbert Padilla. David began working for the railroad at the age of 14. As far back as the 1940s, he was active in Democratic Party politics in Bakersfield. Because of deeply held convictions, when David was drafted during World War II he became one of the first Latino conscientious objectors, unheard of at the time among Latinos. He served as a U.S. Army medical corpsman in Europe, but refused to carry a weapon.
David was very active in the 1950s and early ‘60s with the Community Service Organization, the most militant and effective Latino civil rights group of its era, both in CSO’s Bakersfield chapter and at the national level, where he served as CSO national secretary-treasurer in 1964 to 1969. He also went to work with the American Friends Service Committee in 1963-64, building homes for farm workers in Three Rocks, near the west Central Valley town of Mendota.
CSO’s national staff director during that period was Cesar Chavez. Cesar quit the organization in 1962, to begin building the National Farm Workers Association, which became the UFW. David Burciaga was involved with the infant farm workers union from the beginning. He was among of a small group helping Cesar conduct surveys of farm workers to determine their needs and desires.
Once the UFW was established, David became a key union negotiator. He taught at the UFW school training negotiators that Cesar set up in the late 1970s at its La Paz headquarters in Keene, Calif. David also patiently mentored and counseled younger union negotiators such as ourselves. After leaving the union in the 1980s, he remained active in Bakersfield politics and continued working with the American Friends Service Committee, from which he retired.
The farm worker movement extends its condolences on the passing of this great champion for farm workers and Latinos to David’s family, including his widow, Nancy Burciaga, and their three children, Lidia Lostaunau, David Burciaga Jr. and Ruben Burciaga.
Funeral services are set at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 15, at Bakersfield National Cemetery, 30338 East Bear Mountain Blvd., Arvin, Calif. 93203, in the Tehachapi Mountain foothills just west of Hwy. 58, followed by a 1 p.m. Celebration of Life Reception is at 12:15 PM at 1718 17th Street (17th & H Streets), Bakersfield, CA.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers of America
Paul F. Chavez, President
Cesar Chavez Foundation