COTM ISSUE 9 SUMMER 2014

Indonesian workers consider foreign investment opportunities.

US fast food workers spelling it out

In this issue: Indonesian labour p 2; fast food p4; the millions in action p7; solidarity interview p8; farm workers round-table p10; the extras p14.

Action in Asia – Indonesian labour

What are the prospects for labour in the second of the so-called MINT economies, Indonesia?

Let's put this question into its proper historical context - the emergence of a new labour movement in the country following the demise of the Suharto regime in the late 1990s. Under the iron cloak of Suharto, no independent trade unions were allowed: the state controlled labour federation served as the sole legitimate body, with its affiliates undertaking no genuine representation. Sporadic outbursts by workers were faced down with state repression and infiltration; outlawed labour organisations briefly flourished. Engulfed by economic crisis and political protests against the regime, Suharto's reign ended in 1998.

Legalisation of trade unions and promises of greater political and civil rights quickly followed. A rash of labour organisations appeared: reformist breakaways from the old state federation, revival of earlier unions based on religious affiliation, as well as new radical bodies linked to Left political formations. Though divided on many issues these organs all sought freedom from state interference and the establishment of collective bargaining.

But this legal shift was never going to be the whole answer. Under Suharto Indonesia had become a magnet for foreign investment seekingcheap and docile labour, and this dynamic continued into the 21st century. Without direct state control, employers and their privately hiredmilitia worked to preserve their freedom for manoeuvre against efforts to organise the millions of Indonesian workers.

Fast forward to 2013 and the picture looks something like this....

There are around 118 million workers in the country, with maybe one third lacking secure employment, and many in the informal sector. This mass of precarious work is a major concernfor the new labour movement, alongside the fight for a living wage. In 2013, major advances have been made on both fronts.

Boldest action was the staging of a two day national strike, Oct 31 / Nov 1, in the name of achieving a living wage. With over 1.5 million workers participating, the authorities were left inno doubt that action was needed. Responses varied – some workforces gained substantial wage rises; others like in the Jakarta area offeredonly single digit rises, way below the rising cost of living. Action has continued into 2014 in these areas to move the authorities towards a more plausible settlement, as happened in the previous year.

The strike tabled other demands, concerning health insurance, outsourcing, and legal protection for domestic workers. In terms of outsourcing and precarious employment , there have been numerous protestsover the last year throughout the economy. Though new laws were introduced limiting the use of outsourcing in 2012, the practice is still widespread as employers try to reduce labour costs and the likelihood of disruption.

'precarious work divides the working class'

The public sector in Indonesia has been a major target for union action over the last year. Across the electricity, oil and gas, and telecoms industries, workers have repeatedly demanded their conversion to permanent status.

In the case of the PT PLN electrical company, workers at one stage threatened to turn off the lights in Jakarta. This followed earlier protests when over 370 outsourced workers were laid off, instead of being made permanent. Some workers claim they have been working there for 20 years on rolling contracts....Pertamina, another state owned company, has witnessed a long struggle with the FBE-SBSI union over outsourcing. At the moment 360 workers are suspended whilst the company mounts legal challenges to the ruling of the AcehIndustrial Court that they should become permanent workers.

One of the biggest victories though happened in two tyre making plants run by Bridgestone.Here a mass conversion of temps to permanent employees was won by the IndustriALL affiliateKEP SPSI. Although the use of agency workers on a production line was illegal in Indonesia, thecompany had showed no concern about this before engaging in talks with the union.... By theend of 2012 sufficient progress had been made to transfer 997 workers to a more secure future.

Obviously it isn't all good news for the fourth largest population on the planet. C oercive powers continue to be used by the employers in the sacred cause of profitability.

From the crop of recent stories consider these..

• the Australian mining company, Thiess, has been caught employing police and military staff as guards at its mines, prompting worker protests;

• Doctors staged a walkout in protest after the criminalisation of three of their colleagues, who were imprisoned for alleged medical negligence;

• Workers at a Nike factory were subjectedto intimidation from military personnel, as the employer sought to gain an exemption from new minimum wage rises;

• Hotel workers faced suspension or demotion for their union activities at the Grand Q Hotel.

You can see the attraction for investors.Fortunately the new Indonesian labour movement is proving itself a pretty determined adversary. Jyrki Raini of IndustriALL:“Although the Indonesian trade unions have achieved a great deal, struggles lie ahead. But with their force, commitment and ability to organise I’m convinced that we will see the minimum wage move closer to becoming a decentwage. Indonesian trade unions are an inspiration to us all.”

Object 1

Fast Food Footwork

Wal- Mart isn't the only household name company in America currently under fire for its labour conditions. The fast food sector – McDonalds, KFC, Burger King et al – has come under sustained pressure over the last year from its workers and their allies......Our story begins in November 2012, with the largest ever direct action by non-unionised workers across the whole fast food sector in New York, involving 200 people. Inspired by the example of OUR Wal-Mart, a new cross-company organising committee shaped this action, supported by community allies and the Service Employees International Union. Low wages and anti-union retaliatory measures by their employers were major sources of discontent, a $15 wage rate their main demand. Soon other cities were in on the act, like Chicago and Detroit, reflecting the rapid growthof the low wage sector in the US economy after the 2008 crash. Like OUR Wal-Mart, these walkouts are a novel type of non-or pre-majorityorganising that is gaining more attention in the US union movement.Into 2013 more actions of this type came thick and fast across the whole country, sometimes singly, at other times as part of nationwide protests.:-

• 400 plus workers in New York (April)• over 500 in Detroit protests (May)• national day of action in half a dozen

major cities (July)• workers walk out in 58 cities, in over

1,000 stores and restaurants (August)• another national protest with action in

over 100 cities (December)

These protests had some immediate benefits for the fast food army. Some won pay rises, others gained better working conditions and treatment by local management. The focus of this movement however is to target the entire sector and achieve a universal wage rise plus freedom to join a union: 'we can't survive on $7.25'.

Which Way Forward?

This takes us to the strategic heart of the fast food workers campaign. SEIU is the union funding much of this organising, via community coalitions like New York Communities for Change and the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago. Their focus is as much on the local and federal authorities which set minimum wagelevels and the whole US low-wage economy as the immediate employers in the sector. Walkouts are designed to highlight the plight of the fast food workforce, and exert moral pressure for local living wages. So far, not many wage-setting authorities have heeded the call. Obama aimed to raise the federal minimum to $10.10; New York state will slowly increase its rate to $9.25. But these fall a long way short of the Fight for $15.

Union recognition is not an immediate goal of the fast food campaigners, and this has been criticised within the ranks of the US labour movement – should the aim of political leverage take precedence over mobilising workers power on the job? ((For more on this issue see our interview with Frank Bardacke p7).Others counter that the structure of the fast food industry and its reliance on franchise operations, leaves an industry-wide agreement with the parent corporations, backed by store walkouts and political pressure, as the best option.

Looking into the Industry

Recent US academic research into the fast food sector shines a harsh light on working lives. Low wages combined with part time hours, mean that over half this workforce cannot survive without relying on public assistance programmes of one kind or another. Even with a40 hour week, many still fall short, and some have to take second jobs to stay afloat. The cost of this public subsidy to the mega fast foodcorporations is up to $7 billion each year.

Moreover the common notion of fast food workers as students or young people is false – over 60% were adults and the main wage earners in their households. We can't wait for the economy to produce better jobs'.

On top of this income deficiency, fast food workers complain of poor working conditions:-

excessive heat in restaurants

lack of promotion opportunities and favouritism

irregular shift patterns

aggressive management

extra duties at work

draconian attendance monitoring

Notes from Oregon: a moment to cheer from Oregon zoo, where its food service workforce (mostly temps) won an election and joined Laborers Local 483 in the autumn of 2013

Wage Theft

The low pay of fast food work is compounded by the rampant practice of wage theft that plagues the whole sector. Reports of this are all too common: workers forced to do tasks after they have clocked off, failure to fully pay for overtime hours, denial of legally backed meal breaks. Latest survey results suggest almost 90%of fast food workers are victims.

Fortunately the workforce has started to fight back. At McDonalds a class action lawsuit is under way involving workers from three states.Back in March 23 Domino’s Pizza outlets in New York admitted to wage violations and agreed a settlement of around half a million dollars with their workforce. In the words of Sarita Gupta, director of Jobs with Justice: ' And to be clear, these violations aren't just some fluke in our corporate-dominated culture -- they're a direct result of the way fast-food corporations operate.'

She sums it up like this: ' The real message fromall of these wage fights is clear: Until we hold some of our country's largest employers accountable to paying their workers better (not to mention paying them what they've actually earned), we'll continue to see taxpayers footing the bill for corporate irresponsibility.'

Globalizing The Struggle Early in May 2014 the food industry's global federation, the IUF, convened its affiliates to discuss future cross-border sectoral action. May 15th was the result: a spectacular response in over 30 countries, with coordinated action dramatising the global squeeze on food workers Leading the way, over 130 cities in the USA saw fast food food protests . This time though the focus has fallen on the action in other regions and continents across the globe: Asia and Australasia, Europe, Latin America...... We talked to Massimo Fratinni from the IUF about these developments. H explained that the origins of May 15 lay in the IUF support for a group of US fast food workers back in June 2013. Afterwards the IUF was asked by its affiliates to get more involved. The need for a global focus was clear said Massimo: 'workers across the world face same problems and same struggles: low wages, precarious jobs and retaliation if workers try to join or form a union. These issues areglobal and that’s why the campaign must be global and visible.'

In some countries, including the UK and New Zealand, unions acted alongside community allies, following the US model. Elsewhere unions acted on their own – the case in Italy andBrazil, Germany and France.

Across in New Zealand, the Fight for Fifteen message was taken up enthusiastically, in one of the few countries where fast food workers already have union rights. Campaign leader Taylor McLoon explains:"We're showing both solidarity with fast food workers in the United States and around the world,and also showing McDonald's they should be improving conditions in New Zealand as well,"

Simultaneously Japanese workers took their message to the heart of Tokyo's retail area.

One thing we can be sure of is that this story stillhas a long way to run.

The Millions in Action INDONESIA 2013

Solidarity Interview – Frank Bardacke

Frank Bardacke is the author of an epic history of the United Farm Workers of America - 'Trampling Out The Vintage'.

The UFW were known for combining workplace action with broader activities - boycotts and community alliances; political campaigning to gain leverage over state legislation.You argue this was dangerous - the 'two souls' came into conflict, and workplace action became secondary. Yet today many unions look to extra-workplace activity as an essential part of their campaigns and strategies. What lessons does the UFW experience teach us here?

What do you mean by "essential"? That's the key. There is nothing wrong with extra-workplace activity. It is very helpful to have allies and to build relationships with them. Dockworkers need truck drivers. Truck drivers need people who work in warehouses. And on and on. People can even build useful relationships across classes and countries. Garment workers can benefit from the support of high-end clothes' consumers. But thosearen't the essential concerns of unions. What's essential is the active, committed participation of the rank and file union member. Without that, a union holds only a handful of sand.

Here the experience of the UFW is instructive. Theunion was able to mobilize a powerful set of allies:consumers, students, progressive religious folks, Chicano activists, other unionists. In its early years, through its boycotts the union was able to use the support of these allies to force growers to sign contracts. But that early success helped to turn the union's attention away from its rank and file members.

Union staffers became boycott organizers, not farm worker organizers. The union spent its resources organizing and mobilizing supporters, not its members. The union had such disdain for the power of its own membership that it didn't even establish local unions, but rather appointed all local officials. The members job was to follow the lead of the top officers of the union, not to make any important decisions about the union's future.

Farm workers who fought for power within the union were defeated. Eventually, rank and file support melted away. The union was left with the help of its allies but without its own powerful core. The end was near.

Many today identify community organising (and the work of Saul Alinsky's IAF) as a key tool for unions to expand their horizons, and build wider support for their campaigns. You show that the influence of Alinksy on the UFW was a negative one in some ways: it imported / reinforced an anti-democratic tendency in Chavez's and UFW practice that damaged the functioning of the unionand its ability to be a genuine rank and file body.

Is community organising a double-edged sword fortrade unions?

The Alinsky tradition is a mixed bag for any kind ofpolitical organization, not just for trade unions. At the center of that tradition is the idea of the hero organizer who organizes and mobilizes an otherwise apathetic, weak group of people who are hopelessly divided from each other by their own selfish, particular interests. The hero organizer, through his or her special political knowledge, converts these divided groups into a tight, active community. In this view, the local leaders are essentially parochial, unable to see beyond their own little groups' agendas, unable to unite with each other until the organizer comes along to help them.

Such a scheme has within in it an anti-democratic seed. A seed, that under some conditions, can flower into a full anti-democratic ethos, as happened in the UFW where local leaders couldn'tbe trusted to see the interests of the whole union. They always needed the guidance of the far seeing organizers at the top of the organization.

The experience of local leaders, this crucial experience that is the basic building block of any union, was undervalued, even ignored, by the people who were supposedly organizing them. Some of that had roots far removed from the tradition of community organizing. But some of it came from the ideas of Saul Alinsky.

The boycott was an effective weapon used by the UFW to pressurise growers to recognise the union and sign contracts, especially in its early days. Today we see numerous similar campaigns mounted against employers that target their products and working practices. These may involve an international dimension - whether this be the ubiquitous email protest or a call to physically boycott goods in other countries - that the UFW story lacked.

Do you think international solidarity action has a part to play in future efforts to organise farm workers in the US?

Sure. International solidarity can always help. But it is not the crucial ingredient in organizing farm workers. Farm workers are going to have to get it together themselves before they go out and seek help. I don't believe that outsiders can help all thatmuch in the initial stages. People should focus their attention on the problems closer to home.

Our main task is in our own lives, on our own jobs, in our own communities. We should give people far away a helping hand when they ask for it, but I don't think that international solidarity should ever be the essence of our politics. Sometimes thinking about other peoples' problems is a way to avoid thinking about our own.

In a radio interview with KALW you identified threefactors underpinning farm workers power in the UFW's heyday: the craft skills of field workers (immune to mechanisation); the collective spirit of the work crews; and the vulnerability of the growers due to short harvest time frames.

Do these factors still exist today, three decades later, for farm workers to draw upon?

Harvest time will always be a vulnerable time for the growers, and a time of great opportunity for farm workers. I don't think that will ever change, unless agriculture as an unique activity disappearsand is totally merged into industrial production. That hasn't happened in the last several hundred years, and I don't think it will happen even in the most dystopian future.

The agricultural engineers are always trying to mechanize production, but they have been remarkably unsuccessful in fresh fruits and vegetables. The tree shakers damage the roots of the trees; the fruit harvesters damage the fruits; and most importantly the engineers—with few exceptions—have not been able to make nature mature all at once, and therefore the bosses still need human eyes and brains to decide which fruits or vegetables are ready to harvest and whichones must be left for the next pass through.

Nonetheless, they (and the research departments at public universities) still spend millions of dollars every year trying to mechanize farm workers out of existence. Let's hope they can't do it.

As to the collective spirit of the crews, I couldn't tell you because I no longer am working on one, and you would have to be working on one to know.I think all the highly portable electronic music probably does some damage, getting in the way ofpeople talking to one another. I hope it hasn't donetoo much damage. As hard as it was on my body, Iremember my seven seasons on a harvest crew as one of the best times of my life precisely because of the full, active life of the crew.

Organised violence had a large part to play in UFW history. Do you think this turn to coercion could recur if any large-scale organising efforts took off in the Californian fields today?

History doesn't teach much, but it would seem to tell us that if people with power are in danger of losing their power they will fight with everything they have. And one of things they have is state power, that is, the legitimate use of violence.

Which is a way of saying that if a farm workers' movement becomes a threat to the growers again,they will have the police at their disposal. And theywill use them. As they have used them in the past. As far as vigilantes are concerned, I can only say that I don't know. Which seems as good a way as any of ending an interview

Frank Bardacke

Round-table forum: the legacy of the UFW

The new movie, Cesar Chavez - History is Made One Step

at a Time, directed by Diego Luna, tells the story of the

Grape Strike of 1965. This epic 5-year labor battle led to

the organization of the United Farm Workers, and made

Cesar Chavez a social movement hero. The movie has

provoked controversy over its depiction of his role, and the

accuracy of the history it recounts of those events. In this

roundtable, labor journalist David Bacon, an ex organizer

for the UFW explores these themes with four guests.

Eliseo Medina was a farm worker when the strike started,

and became a noted labor organizer, first in the UFW and

later in the Service Employees Union. Doug Adair was an

activist in the 1965 strike. Dawn Mabalon is a professor of

history at San Francisco State University, and an authority

of the history of Filipinos in California. Rosalinda Guillen

comes from a farm worker family, was a UFW organizer,

and today organizes farm labor.

David: How did the movie square with your memories

of the grape strike as a participant?

Eliseo: It's a good time for this movie to come out and

show not only the challenges immigrants face, but also the

fact that they're willing to struggle and that when they do

they can win, regardless of the power structure. It could've

done a much better job of telling the full story, but it's

impossible to tell 10 years worth of history in 2 hours. It's a

movie, not a documentary, and its aim is not to tell the

story of the whole movement. To do that would take a lot

more than just one movie.

David: The film presents the UFW as a movement

mostly of Chicanos and Mexicanos, but it was also a

multinational union, including African-Americans,

Arab, and even white people. That doesn't come

through as much.

Eliseo: When I was a farm worker, before the strike

began, we lived in different worlds -- the Latino world, the

Filipino world, the African-American world and the

Caucasian world. We co-existed but never understood who

we were or what each other thought and dreamed about. It

wasn't until the union began that we finally began to work

together, to know each other and to begin to fight together.

I do wish that that had been more explicit because

certainly the contribution that was made by the Filipino

workers to the strike and the movement was an incredible

part of the success of the union. The fact that we also had

Caucasians and African-Americans participating in the

strike never even gets brought up. It was always multi-

racial. I do wish it had focused more on showing what can

happen when people work together and fight together and

make changes, not only for one group, but for everybody.

David: There has been criticism of the movie's

portrayal of Filipino workers. How do you feel about

that?

Dawn: Filipinos had been organizing, not just that year,

but for decades before. The growers had always divided

Mexicans and Filipinos. What was so powerful about that

moment in Delano was that those two groups defied this.

But way they came together was downplayed. There was

so little context that there's no understanding that it was

these other people, in particular Larry Itliong, who really

sparked the strike.

Larry went to Delano in the early 1960s, sent by the

Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, the AFL-CIO

union founded in Stockton. He already had decades of

labor experience with the Alaskan salmon cannery union.

He organized a failed strike of asparagus workers in

Stockton in 1948 and a successful strike in 1949. He had

more experience than everyone, Dolores Huerta and

Cesar included. Unfortunately he died a few years after

the UFW and didn't leave much behind for us. We're still

trying to piece together how important he was, not just to

the Filipino-American community, but to American labor in

general. But we know he was really pivotal to this strike

and to the early years of the UFW. He resigned in 1971, so

he often gets left out of that larger history.

Also, the first person killed in the strike was a Yemeni

worker, but in the movie, it's portrayed as someone who's

Mexican. The filmmakers didn't really understand what

made the strike so powerful.

Doug: The original spark in Delano was when Filipinos

workers began sitting in at the camps. It wasn't a strike

with picket lines, but a sit-in and refusing to go to work.

Larry began going around to the camps seeing if he could

use the sit-ins to negotiate better wages.

David: The film did show the sit-in in the camps,

which surprised me. Not many people know that

happened, and it's a very important part of history.

The movie starts with a little section where Cesar is

the head of the Community Service Organization

(CSO), but doesn't show him organizing protests

about the bracero program, in which growers were

able to bring workers from Mexico under very abusive

conditions, sending them back at the end of the

season. Should the movie have said more about it?

Doug: Workers first went on strike in Coachella in the

spring of 1965 because the bracero program was being

phased out. With braceros, it was almost inevitable that

strikes would lose. When the government said growers

had to offer $1.40 an hour if they wanted to hire braceros

AWOC demanded the same wage.

That was the spark that set off the strike. Actually if it had

been up to Cesar, there wouldn't have been a strike in

Delano because he didn't feel our union was ready. There

was no money in the bank, and he wanted to do more

organizing. He used to say "we're not a union, and we're

not gonna start strikes."

Rosalinda: For us, organizing farmworkers and opposing

guest worker [bracero-type] programs today, it's clear why

Cesar opposed the bracero program. Growers at that time

used the program to break strikes, when workers tried to

form unions. It's still happening today, to farmworkers in

Burlington, Washington who went on strike last year.

When I joined the United Farmworkers in 1996, the union

opposed the H2A guest worker visa program very strongly.

Leaving out that history was a wasted opportunity to

include more political context that is still important to us.

David: The movie stops when the industry-wide grape

contract gets signed. Did the contract and the union

change life for farmworkers and was it a permanent

change?

Doug: When I worked under that first contract our wages

and benefits were over double the minimum wage of

American workers. We had a health plan that was the envy

of many other unions. We could sit down with the growers

and negotiate over grievances. We wouldn't always win,

but we could negotiate our working conditions.

The movie did show that workers can join together in spite

of appalling conditions and improve their wages and

working conditions. That did come through. It is a possible

to change history with concerted action, by getting

together.

Rosalinda: Today farmworkers can organize because of

the example of the farmworkers in the 60s and 70s in

California. The movie shows clearly what it looks like to

organize and come together. This is one of the legacies of

Cesar Chavez, this coming together of different workers

with different religions and different political views.

Unfortunately, today we have a splintered movement and

divided communities. We see the same old attacks, like

this guest worker program, to stop farmworkers from

organizing for better wages and better treatment.

Doug: But I think the movie did show the viciousness of

the growers and their local power structure; district

attorneys and the cops and thugs on the side of the

growers. The whole local structure was against the union

and the farmworkers.

Rosalinda: And it's still like that.

David: How much presence does the union have

today?

Doug: There are no contracts in the grapes today. Wages

are nowhere near even the miserable minimum wage,

which is not enforced. There are a few advances in

pesticide regulations and toilets in the fields and shade,

drinking water - minimal things that didn't exist in 1965. But

the presence of the union in the Coachella Valley is a

shadow of its former self. Just a few pensioners like me.

Dawn: My father died working the asparagus nine years

ago. I wish the film had been much stronger in saying

these conditions still exist today and we still have to fight

for farmworkers. I was hoping at the end of the film you

would have this feeling of inspiration and a call to action,

but you get the sense that now we won and it's over.

Eliseo: Clearly the union was able to begin lifting workers

out of poverty. They had paid holidays, vacations and

health insurance. Unfortunately, at the time when we were

poised to completely change these workers' lives we lost

focus. As a result, workers today are back where they

were before the union. Most are working at minimum

wage again. Employers are back to just trying to get the

work done in the cheapest way possible, regardless of the

impact on workers. They are making the rise of another

farmworkers union inevitable. People are only going to put

up with exploitation for so long before they rise up and

begin organizing. That's going to happen in agriculture.

It's not a matter of if - it's a matter of when. I have no

doubt about that.

David: I want to talk about how the film treats radical

politics. There is a scene in which the sheriff and the

growers accuse the unions of being Communist, and

Cesar and says that's silly, we're Catholic. But the

Filipinos, in their prior organizing, had been very

leftwing. Is this underplayed?

Dawn: I've always seen tension between the Filipino

leftists/Marxists/Communists and anti-communism within

the UFW. Larry Itliong considered Chris Mensalves one of

his mentors, who organized Filipino lettuce workers in

Salinas in the 1930s and was considered by the FBI one of

the most dangerous Communist labor organizers of his

day. The union Larry came from, ILWU Local 37, was led

by leftists and members of the Communist Party. [UFW

leader] Philip Veracruz was an ardent leftist. By erasing

Filipinos, you also downplay those radical roots. Even

nonviolence was a tension for Filipinos, who were used to

shooting at scabs who crossed the picket lines, and were

uncomfortable with hunger strikes, marches and religious

pageantry. This history of the grape strike - about

negotiation and collaboration and what people learned

from each other - is missing in the movie.

Doug: The movie stressed Cesar saying "Oh we're

Catholic, so we couldn't possibly be Communists", but in

fact there was a strong element in the union that was very

anti-clerical. The church in Mexico was always on the side

of the growers and the wealthy and always against the

peasants and the poor. Typically the Protestants among

farmworkers had rebelled against the Catholic Church and

were rebels at heart and were especially receptive to the

union.

The young Filipinos in the movement were the

revolutionaries, fighting to overturn the whole system. We

called them "the Huks." The march to Sacramento was a

very radical statement - that we wanted to overturn this

whole corrupt structure. We were the people that were

feeding America and that we had a right to be at the table.

David: At one point the growers say they are going to

bring in "illegals" - they use that word, not

"undocumented" - by the truckload. Do you think this

experience shaped how Cesar saw the question of

immigration?

Eliseo: The growers knew very well that divide and

conquer was an important strategy, so they were not

above using workers to break the strike, whether they were

documented or undocumented. And they certainly felt that

having a captive work force would make it easier for them.

Cesar was well aware, as were all of us, that many

strikers who undocumented. What the union wanted was

to make sure that no one was used to break the strike,

regardless of their status. The union and the strike was a

movement of documented and undocumented people.

Some of the strongest and most active people were

undocumented.

In many cases when workers began to organize, growers

would call in the Border Patrol to scare people and arrest

and deport them. For the undocumented, being for the

union was a lot more serious because it potentially meant

arrest and deportation, leaving their families behind. The

union was very conscious about this and made it their

policy to defend those workers

Doug: Whether they had papers or not, if they were

strikebreakers we wanted them out of there. At different

points in the union's history, it's taken a very hard line

against people without papers. The union's base were the

permanent families who lived in Delano. But of course

there were a lot of people who lived in labor camps.

David: So there was always tension about new

migrants, not just the undocumented, as being either

job competitors or part of the union. Did you think of

the union as being hostile to undocumented people, or

just hostile to strikebreakers?

Rosalinda: Hostile to strikebreakers. In my time in the

union, from 1996-2003, I did not see any behavior that was

anti-immigrant in any way. I know how ugly things can get

when growers use this tactic of turning Mexican against

Mexican or Filipino against Filipino, turning people against

each other, the poorest of the poor and the desperate.

Today when we're opposing guest workers we're not

against Mexican workers who are being brought in. We're

against this program that puts them in vulnerable

situations. It's legalized wage theft, because they're

displacing the workers who are already here. In fact, the

whole issue of blocking the guest worker program was

central to the union's political work, because the

agricultural industry uses this program to slow down

farmworker organizing.

David: The Filipino community was not united in how

it looked at the union or Cesar, was it?

Dawn: The Stockton community is divided over the legacy

of the United Farm Workers. I think that Larry Itliong's

compadres became very bitter about what happened to

him, and that Filipino voices had been drowned out in the

union. So there was a lot of silence and bitterness when I

was growing up. And then there's also the issue of Cesar's

visit with [Philippine dictator Ferdinand] Marcos. The

community was already split about the Marcos

dictatorship. It's a very complex legacy, with some people

not even knowing that Filipinos were part of UFW, and

others who do know having a complex relationship with the

ways in which Filipinos were treated

Doug: Many of the leaders in the Filipino community were

foreman. They had a tradition of representing their workers

and trying to get better wages and working conditions for

the crew. Larry mostly organized through them and got

whole crews on board. But when it became clear the strike

was going to be broken a lot decided it was time to go

back to work, and made a deal with the growers. When the

contracts did come in, the powers of the foremen were

stripped away. Then when the Teamsters Union came in,

they offered those foremen their powers back. Many of the

Filipino foremen urged their crews to switch to the

Teamsters. But many of the strongest Filipino workers,

who had been foremen, stayed with the UFW because

they were too radical to negotiate with the growers.

Rosalinda: Now more than ever we need to see how

movements are built. Organizing is not perfect - there is

conflict. It's almost like this movie was pulled together to

make Cesar a kind of superhero instead of understanding

how difficult it is to build a union from the bottom up.

David: Most people's experience of the union was not

in the fields, but as supporters in the boycotts. The

union had an enormous impact on growers, by

basically appealing to people not to buy grapes. There

are scenes in the movie of people picketing stores, of

growers complaining it's hurting them, and it even

shows Cesar going to London. The boycott is one of

the most important and powerful weapons workers

have in addition to the strike. What do you think about

the picture that the movie painted of it?

Doug: I thought it was good enough on the boycott. By

late November [1965], it was clear that the strike had been

broken-we weren't going to win the grape strike in the

fields. The boycott was one of Cesar's many ideas to

finesse the local power structure and get the American

public involved.

Cesar's genius was not in being the one handing out

leaflets but in putting together a team, and sending people

out to cities all across the country, and in fact, all across

the world. A woman named Elaine Elinson went to

London. The American embassy was promoting grapes

and the transport workers and the other unions in England

supported the boycott. Cesar went to Europe much later,

but he never went to London

Dawn: Larry Itliong and other Filipinos like Pete Velasco

were also a strong part of the boycott. For the Filipino-

Americans who were inspired by Larry, those were some

of their best memories of being involved in the movement

David: Any last words??

Doug: I cry in movies, and I cried in this one. It brought

back a lot of memories. I'm looking forward to the movie

on Larry Itliong.

Dawn: A talented Filipino filmmaker from Bakersfield,

Marissa Aroy has made one called "The Delano Manongs."

She's unearthed some amazing archival footage of the

Filipinos striking, of Larry Itliong talking about his

experiences. It provides some rich nuance for

understanding this movement.

As disappointed as some of us may be, I think the movie

has given us this amazing opportunity to dialogue, and to

continue to be involved in farmworker justice and all these

issues where we need to coalesce with the Latino

community, like immigration reform. It's made young

Filipinos go, "Why aren't we in it, and I want to know

more." I think that's amazing.

Eliseo: Cesar's legacy today is that thousands of people

learned the skill of organizing and are making their own

contribution to a more just society. A lot of the strategy

and inspiration comes straight out of the farmworkers

movement. I hope the Diego Lunas of the future will be

inspired to take a look at the whole story. It has a lot of

lessons about organizing and perseverance, and the

theory and practice of non-violence and how it can lead to

major social change. It's a story that needs to be told.

The Extras

On the emergence of the new Indonesian labour movement see Dan la Botz 'Made in Indonesia' (2001). For current developments try the Asia Monitor Resource Center - http://www.amrc.org.hk/ - and the excellent coverage on Labour Start.

The US fast food movement has many news outlets. Fast Food Forward is a good starting point - https://www.facebook.com/FastFoodForward. In These Times has good coverage of the 2013 events and strategic debates - http://inthesetimes.com/ . For recent research into the sector see http://fastfoodforward.org/new-report-fast-food-poverty-wages-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-jobs-in-the-fast-food-industry/

Frank Bardacke's book 'Trampling out the Vintage' was published in 2011 by Verso books.