Law & Activism:
Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the UFW

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During the 1960s in Delano , California , Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the organization that would lead the way to becoming the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). They, along with a small group of followers, began going from camp to camp and attempting to organize farm workers. Because of the exceptionalism of farm workers under the law, it was near impossible for farm workers to yield any sort of power. As a result of this, the conditions in the fields were often sub-standard. Many camps were neither provided with fresh drinking water nor with the proper sanitation facilities. Men and women became crippled after years and years of debilitating stoop labor and were granted no sort of medical or retirement benefits under the law. Even worse, employers would often spray pesticides on their crops while the workers were out in the fields picking. These pesticides were often extremely harmful and there were no regulations on their safe application. Chavez was able to use farm workers anger about the state of their situation to convince them to join in NFWA's fight. Simultaneously, a group of Filipino farm workers were joining forces under the acronym AWOC (Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee). On September 16, Mexican Independence Day, members of the NFWA voted unanimously to join in the fight with their fellow farm workers in the AWOC thus beginning the famous strike against the Coachella grape growers. Chavez advocated non-violent means of change and thus a labor strike and nationwide boycott of table grapes was the answer. The coalition soon became known as the UFQ (United Farm Workers) and after 5 years of struggle, the grape growers finally admitted defeat and signed contracts with the UFW on July 29, 1970 (39).

© 1971 by Manuel Echavaria

Despite the advances the Chavez and Huerta made with regards to the rights of farm workers in the United States , they are still faced daily with struggles due to their exceptionalism under the law: the same thing that caused problems in the beginning of the NFWA's struggle. One can in fact say that the United States legal system contributes to the poverty and powerlessness of its farm workers. It was first during the reforms of the Progressive Era in the late nineteenth century and the creation of the New Deal that the doctrine of “farm worker exceptionalism” appeared (40). Labor laws were being passed to better the lives of the industrialized workers, but farm workers were not included in this discussion. Because most of the farm workers in the South during New Deal legislation were African American, southern politicians refused to pass any reforms that appeared as anti-slavery. Thus, farm work had its origins as the exception under the law.

Even today, farm workers are excluded from federal worker protections such as minimum wage, maximum hours, workplace safety standards, as well as laws that limited child labor. In addition to not being provided with minimum wage, the workers are exempt from collecting overtime pay as there is no limit on the maximum number of hours in a work week. Not only are they not guaranteed overtime but they also cannot collect unemployment compensation. With regards to child labor, children as young as twelve can work under certain conditions with parental permission and children as young as ten may apply for waivers to be allowed to work in the fields. With regards to workplace safety, the Department of Labor has yet to issue specific standards for safety in most agricultural jobs (41).

All in all, farm workers have a history of being excluded from protections that the federal government affords to almost all other professions in the United States . The majority of these exceptions come at the cost of the farm workers and the benefit of the growers, the big companies and even the average American citizen who refuses to pay more for produce.