Cesar Chavez |
November 9, 1984
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Cesar Chavez
Labor leader and political activist; Founder, United Farm Workers of America
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q: Do you welcome the suggestion made last August by AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, that the nation's labor laws be repealed, letting business and labor battle out their differences?
A: Although we're not covered under the federal legislation, we're not covered under any law outside of California, should explain that farm workers were excluded from the National Labor Relations Act back in 1936, and we're excluded still, except California where we have a state law. But I would say from what I hear and see other unions going through, it's no big shake being under the federal law these days. It probably would be better to either revamp the law completely or give labor the right to go out and secondary boycott and... those things so that they can take care of themselves.
Q: What is your position on the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration bill, and how would you solve our immigration dilemma?
A: Well, the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill is dead for the time being, and my personal position is that if there is a problem with immigration it's an economic problem, not a legal problem. And I don't really think you're going to do anything by legislating, trying to keep people out of the United States, where there's jobs and where people come because they have hungry kids back where they come from. And unless we do something about developing jobs on the other side of the border or wherever they come from, if we don't do that, we're not going to stop them unless we have the whole Army from Tijuana to Brownsville.
Q: What is the UFWA position on the proposal for guest workers?
A: We're very much against it. We do not need captive, submissive labor in this country. That is something that happened many years ago; it shouldn't come back. We have unemployment in the fields. There are American workers who want to do the work. We don't need them, unless they want to bring them here so they can have a larger labor pool so they can continue to keep the wages and the conditions down.
Q: Yesterday, the UFW filed a $100 million lawsuit against the general Counsel of the state farm labor board. Has the farm labor board failed in its duties to oversee farm labor relations?
A: They failed miserably. That law that was enacted back in 1975, is totally not working today. The workers are owed over $70 million of cases that have been, that have gone through all of the hearing procedures including up to the state Supreme Court and then back. Seventy million dollars have not been collected. This last budget session, the state legislative analysts proposed that it be a million-dollar budget addition so they could implement a group of people within the agency to go collect that money and Governor Deukmejian vetoed the alignment of the bill. So it's not working and the suits that we're finding against them is because workers cannot, at this point, file grievances or file cases with the board.
Q: What is your analysis of the anti-bilingual ballot initiative in the state election? Do you consider bilingual balance a right or a privilege? A right or a privilege.
A: Well, the issue is not bilingual. The issue is the enfranchisement of people or citizens of this country. And I don't care who it is, I don't care what language he speaks or if he speaks no language at all, that the issue is not bilingual. The issue is whether people who cannot read English, who cannot understand English, if they're citizens, should they or should they not vote? That's the issue and I say they should vote. It doesn't matter what language they use. That's the issue; enfranchisement of people who do not speak the English language because they happen to be citizens, too.
Q: Mr. Chavez, why do you think many of the labor union workers voted for President Reagan instead of their traditional support for Democrats?
A: I can't speak for many of the workers who voted for President Reagan. I can only surmise that President Reagan is, personally, a very popular president. But I don't know what percentage voted for him.
Q: Forty-nine percent.
A: Forty-nine percent; well, it's a little higher then. Hispanics in California -
Q: Hispanic vote.
A: In California, we're under 25 percent.
Q: Right.
A: And four years ago they were 36 percent and we voted down to 25 percent. I think we're making some progress there.
Q: Now watch out, I've been a union member for 41 years so I'm older than you are even. Well, at least in union age. Hispanics in California have been called the sleeping giant of state politics. How and when will this giant be awakened?
A: Well, I don't know if they are giants, but there are certainly a lot of us, and it's a gradual development, and we see from the days of 1948, '47, right after the Second World War and I got involved in this work. And today we compare that we've come a long ways. When you look ahead we have a long ways to go, but if the Hispanics are given the right to go to school, the right to jobs, and we can knock down the discrimination and bring some more equality, and they will progress faster. And someday, they'll be able to truly make their contributions that they can make and we want to make to our society, our country where we live.
Q: For fruits and vegetables, Mexico is a major competitor with California agriculture. How do farm labor conditions in Mexico compare with those in California?
A: Well, in expectations, they're about the same we expect for workers in this country and the conditions are pretty bad. We don't expect too much in Mexico for work and the conditions are pretty bad.
Q: Do you favor the ongoing mechanization of the California wine grape industry?
A: There are some jobs that should be mechanized. They should have been mechanized many years ago, because some of those jobs are not fit for human beings. They aren't even fit for beasts of burden, and they should be given to machines.
We've never thought that mechanization and progress would hurt unions or hurt ourselves if, at the same time, those people, the universities who developed the machines to put people out of jobs, if they wouldn't go a step further and do something about people without jobs, then it would be okay. Our fight is not against mechanization; it's against the end-result mechanization and more so that the universities don't and the government don't pay any attention to those who lose their jobs because of machines.
Q: What is the single most important change in conditions for farm workers that your union has achieved?
A: Really, that's a difficult question and my personal - it is my very personal feeling. I think it's the most, and sure wages and working conditions, all those things are important. But to me, I think personally, that recognition of workers' dignity, that when a worker is recognized as a human being, to me, that's the most important thing.
Q: And what steps is the farm union taking to combat the union-busting climate set by the present administration?
A: Really, in terms of the administrative powers, Governor Deukmejian has tremendous powers and he's really very much against our union, so very little can be done there. I think legislatively we can checkmate him in the state legislature and keep the law from being either gutted down or new bills against the law being enacted, but I think that our best bet is to do what we did when we had no law, and that was to boycott. And so we're starting the California grape boycott precisely because of that.
Q: How many members belong to your union at the present time? I think this person wants to join. How much are your union dues?
A: Well, we have a little over 100,000 members, but they don't work. They're like sometimes like actors and actresses. They work, you know, sporadically.
Q: And political appointees, too.
A: That doesn't mean that they all work at the same time, but in the course of one year, we'll have those many people that work either one hour or 12 months.
Q: This one's kind of difficult, I think. Mr. Chavez, do you credit McDonald's and Lucky's with deciding to buy union lettuce for charitable reasons or because they support the UFW, or are there economic reasons?
A: I think we presented a very compelling legal argument to those, to McDonald's and Lucky's and the others when we laid out all of the legal history of the case that we have against Bruce Church, and I think they did it because of that.
Q: When do you plan to run for your first elective public office?
A: Never.
Q: Okay, I'll give you a hard question then. That's too hard, that's too hard for me to read. Isn't there a strong analogy between the Hispanic situation in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California and Canada's French problem in Quebec? Don't both present problems to which no satisfactory solution is likely to be found within the foreseeable future?
A: And, I should include, most of the countries throughout the world the issue of minorities all over the world is a difficult issue. And I think that probably the biggest stumbling block, as I study the issue of minorities are very interesting throughout the world, is that the failure of the majorities to understand, to really understand the culture and the expectations of minorities. It is difficult to want to put one's self on somebody else's shoes. But I think the failure to understand people's histories and people's desires and such things is probably the most difficult thing to overcome. Once that's been accomplished, then it can happen. Also remember, minorities also sometimes become majorities.
Q: And for your last question: If you had it to do over again, would you?
A: I would 30 times over, yes. Thank you.
Generously funded by:
Tom Campbell
Dee Dee Myers