Associated Farmers of California

Last updated

The Associated Farmers of California was an influential anti-labor organization in California between 1934 and 1939. Agricultural and business leaders formed the organization to counter growing labor activism in California. The AF was responsible for substantial violence in reaction to agricultural strikes; the creation of anti-picketing ordinances; and spying on the activities of labor organizations. After a US Senate investigation into its actions and the advent of WW2, it lost influence and eventually disbanded. “The reign of the AF would only come to an end when the LaFollette Committee turned its scrutiny towards its activities in 1939 and 1940." The committee's attention short-circuited the AF's attempt to expand across the United States.” [1]

Contents

Founding and Mission

The Associated Farmers Association was created as a reaction to the growing labor movement in California in the 1930s as farmworkers agitated for increased wages and improved working conditions. The AF was “[o]rganized in Fresno on 28 March 1934 by members of the California State Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau” and the founders considered it as “an emergency organization set up to prevent a recurrence of the strikes of 1933.” [2] Numerous farm organizations including the Grange and the Farm Bureau already existed, but the AF “arose in 1934 out of the numerous citizen associations that were created in 1933 to combat farmworker unionization.” [1] As the number of annual strikes increased in the 1930s, AF chapters spread throughout the state, with 42 chapters eventually in place and “the total number of individuals mobilized probably exceed[ing] 50,000 and may have been as high as 70,000." [1]

The Associated Farmers were determined to prevent any labor actions by agricultural union organizers along with most labor reforms. They opposed housing programs and the farm minimum wage. They fought against a bill prohibiting the California Highway Patrol from making arrests in strikes, a bill mandating the inspection of labor camps by outside parties, and even a bill that would require farmers to provide their workers with drinking cups. “Not one bill which the Associated Farmers opposed in 1939 got through the legislature.” [2] In 1935, Herman Cottrell, Associated Farmers official and organizer of its paramilitary California Cavaliers, declared, “We aren't going to stand for any more of these organizers from now on; anyone who peeps about higher wages will wish he hadn't.” [3]

Funding, Leadership, and Politics

The founders and leading contributors to the Associated Farmers were not only farmers, but businesses with links to agriculture. “These included packing companies, ginning combines, transportation, power and finance companies. ... The industrial supporters of the AF were among the largest corporations in California." [1] Financial supporters included “the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company ...the Holly Sugar Corporation, and the Spreckels Investment Company." [2] These donors provided substantial funding. From May 1934 to November 1939 the AF collected $184,231. The “ten largest contributors to the Associated Farmers, though constituting but the smallest fraction of 1 percent of all contributors, provided 44.3 percent of all funds." [4]

In the 1930s the Associated Farmers opposed worker housing programs, and during “the Merriam administration...blocked forty pro-farm labor bills... . Another 140 were blocked in the Olson administration." [2] The real extent of the business community's support of the Associated Farmers was only fully revealed during the Senate inquiry into the group's anti-labor activities, which were determined to violate free speech and assembly as well as the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively.

Actions During California Labor Strikes

The Associated Farmers kept files on more “than a thousand suspected subversives (read, union organizers), sharing this information with police officials throughout the state." [2] Operatives from the AF requested information from growers so they could identify problematic labor organizers. The Associated Farmer employed spies to infiltrate labor organizations and kept lists of union activists so that employers could avoid hiring them. A letter from the Associated Farmers to the Olive Hillside groves requested their help “To better assist you in determining any possible agitators or workers with undesirable affiliations in your employment, we are asking you to mail us a complete list of your pickers or field laborers." [5]

The Associated Farmers also helped form citizens’ groups to mobilize against farmworkers, mostly with the support of local law enforcement. “The cooperation and mobilization of civilian groups was endorsed by the Peace Officers Association of the State of California as a means of combating "subversive" activity." [1] These groups were often involved in violent repression of labor actions and strikes. “The citizen groups were responsible for a series of vigilante attacks on farmworkers and their organizers. The vigilantes were untrained in police tactics but were nonetheless armed with 20 inch pick axe handles, and in some cases tear gas, and turned loose on strikers." [1] By 1936, led by Colonel Walter E Garrison, “...the emphasis was on breaking all strikes through the mass deputization of farmers." [4]

In 1939 Carey McWilliams characterized the Associated Farmers of California as Farm Fascists. [2] The Associated Farmers used California's anti-syndicalism laws to prevent strikes and destroy the CAWIU. Local anti-picketing ordinances sprang up throughout California, and “the Associated Farmers helped secure the passage of such ordinances.” These ordinances had sweeping prohibitions on speech (and were later deemed unconstitutional) including “prohibit[ing] the use of language...that tended to provoke a breach of the peace...” and making it “unlawful for any person to utter...or to make any loud noise or to speak in a loud or unusual tone...” to prevent people from patronizing a business under labor negotiations." [4] The anti-syndicalism laws also helped put numerous labor leaders like Pat Chambers, Caroline Decker, and others into jail, successfully breaking strikes through "eliminat[ing] union leadership." [6] Once strikers or organizers had been arrested, the Associated Farmers worked closely with prosecutors, even going “..so far as to hire District Attorney Elmer Heald of Imperial County to prepare the criminal syndicalism indictment for his Sacramento County counterpart...” [6]

The AF believed that “Communists were attempting to organize the farm workers of California” and in fact most of the organizers they cited were openly Communist. But “the Associated Farmers were after something else: the suppression of farm labor through a Red Scare, and it worked." [2]

The Senate Investigation

After the successes the Associated Farmers achieved against strikes in Salinas in 1936 and Stockton in 1937, the tide began to turn against the group. In December 1939, Senator Robert La Follette Jr opened a Senate subcommittee hearing into the “Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor,” to investigate numerous “violations of the rights of free speech and ...undue interference with the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively." [5] The committee hearings took testimony and incorporated letters and memoranda from numerous members of the Associated Farmers, including S. Parker Frisselle (the AF's first president) and Colonel Walter Garrison, who succeeded Frisselle in 1936. The hearings in Los Angeles in January 1940 focused on the Imperial Valley Strike of 1935. The committee heard testimony on the violence in the 1934 lettuce strike, attacks on attorneys, vigilantism, and even a motion by the local Associated Farmers group of the Imperial Valley to investigate the cost of machine guns to arm the sheriff's office. [5]

The publication by Carey McWilliams of “Factories in the Fields” in 1939 had already helped to shine a light on the actions of the Associated Farmers, as did John Steinbeck's publication in 1939 of The Grapes of Wrath (which referred to a fictional “Farmers' Association” intended to stand for the Associated Farmers [7] ). In 1940 the La Follette committee ended its investigations by reporting that “the economic and social plight of California's agricultural labor is miserable beyond belief.” The conclusions of the La Follette committee report found a “conspiracy to suppress constitutional rights that ...made California seem more a fascist European dictatorship than part of the United States." [2] But although the American public had seen "a damning indictment of the abusive labor policies that prevailed in California's industrialized agriculture," [6] no member of the Associated Farmers suffered more than public exposure, and a decade of mostly losses during labor strikes left the farmworker movement crippled. The public testimony revealed during the La Follette committee hearings, along with the advent of World War 2 and the fading of the Great Depression, all contributed to the gradual elimination of the Associated Farmers as a significant source of union opposition in California.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Farm Workers</span> Labor union for farmworkers in the United States

The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. They became allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union.

The Oxnard strike of 1903 was a labor rights dispute in the southern California coastal city of Oxnard between local landowners and the majority Japanese and Mexican labor force.

In the United States Senate, the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, or more formally, Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee Investigating Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor (1936–1941), began as an inquiry into a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigation of methods used by employers in certain industries to avoid collective bargaining with unions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delano grape strike</span> Labor strike in California, USA

The Delano grape strike was a labor strike organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a predominantly Filipino and AFL-CIO-sponsored labor organization, against table grape growers in Delano, California to fight against the exploitation of farm workers. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and one week later, the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) joined the cause. In August 1966, the AWOC and the NFWA merged to create the United Farm Workers (UFW) Organizing Committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Schuster Taylor</span> American economist

Paul Schuster Taylor was an American progressive agricultural economist. He was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin and earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley where he then became professor of economics from 1922, until his retirement in 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farmworker</span> Performs agricultural labor

A farmworker, farmhand or agricultural worker is someone employed for labor in agriculture. In labor law, the term "farmworker" is sometimes used more narrowly, applying only to a hired worker involved in agricultural production, including harvesting, but not to a worker in other on-farm jobs, such as picking fruit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salad Bowl strike</span> 1970–71 farm worker strike

The Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that began on August 23, 1970 and led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history. The strike was led by the United Farm Workers against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Salad Bowl strike was only in part a jurisdictional strike, for many of the actions taken during the event were not strikes. The strike led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.

The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute in United States labor law that was enacted by the state of California in 1975, establishing the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state, a first in U.S. history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Steven Street</span> American photographer, historian and journalist

Richard Steven Street is an American photographer, historian and journalist of American farmworkers and agricultural issues. He is well known for his multi-volume history of California farmworkers and photo essays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caroline Decker</span> American labor activist

Caroline Decker Gladstein was a labor activist in the 1930s in California. A member of the Communist Party, as many activists were, she was an organizer for the Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ International Union (CAWIU). Decker helped organize the massive California agricultural strikes of 1933 during the Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California agricultural strikes of 1933</span>

The California agricultural strikes of 1933 were a series of strikes by mostly Mexican and Filipino agricultural workers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. More than 47,500 workers were involved in the wave of approximately 30 strikes from 1931 to 1941. Twenty-four of the strikes, involving 37,500 union members, were led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union (CAWIU). The strikes are grouped together because most of them were organized by the CAWIU. Strike actions began in August among cherry, grape, peach, pear, sugar beet, and tomato workers, and culminated in a number of strikes against cotton growers in the San Joaquin Valley in October. The cotton strikes involved the largest number of workers. Sources vary as to numbers involved in the cotton strikes, with some sources claiming 18,000 workers and others just 12,000 workers, 80% of whom were Mexican.

The Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU) was a Communist-aligned union active in California in the early 1930s. Organizers provided support to workers in California's fields and canning industry. The Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU) dated back to 1929 with the formation of the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL). With industrialization and the advent of the factories, labor started migrating into the urban space. An influx of immigrant workers contributed to the environment favorable to big business by increasing the supply of unskilled labor lost to the urban factories. The demand for labor spurred the growers to look to seasonal migrant workers as a viable labor source. Corporations began to look at profits and started to marginalize its workers by providing sub-par wages and working conditions to their seasonal workers. The formation of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union addressed and represented the civil rights of the migrant workers. Ultimately the CAWIU lost the battle, overwhelmed by the combined alliance of growers and the Mexican and state governments. The eventual abandonment of the Trade Union Unity League led to the dissolution of the CAWIU, which later emerged as the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vacaville tree pruners' strike</span> 1932 California tree pruners strike

The Vacaville tree pruners' strike of 1932 was a two-month strike beginning on November 14 by the CAWIU in Vacaville, California, United States. The strikers were protesting a cut in tree pruning wages from $1.40 for an eight-hour workday to $1.25 for a nine-hour workday. The strike was characterized by multiple violent incidents including a break-in at the Vacaville jail that resulted in the kidnapping and abuse of six arrested strike leaders. The strikers were ultimately unsuccessful in demanding higher wages and fewer hours and the CAWIU voted to end the strike on January 20, 1933.

Criminal syndicalism has been defined as a doctrine of criminal acts for political, industrial, and social change. These criminal acts include advocation of crime, sabotage, violence, and other unlawful methods of terrorism. Criminal syndicalism laws were enacted to oppose economic radicalism.

The Salinas California lettuce strike of 1934 ran from August 27 to September 24, 1934, in the Salinas Valley of California. This strike of lettuce cutters and shed workers was begun and largely maintained by the recently formed Filipino Labor Union and came to highlight ethnic discrimination and union repression. Acts of violence from both frustrated workers and vigilante bands threatened the strike's integrity.

The Neutral Thousands, initialized as TNT, was an organization created in 1937 to target union activities and was known as an anti-union organization. The organization rose along with a tide of similar organizations in the period of the late-19th century to the mid-twentieth century. Bessie Ochs, formerly a speaker for the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, was recruited by Byron C. Hanna, the leader of The Southern Californians, Incorporated, to lead the organization. In addition to the general activities of the organization, it also broadcast a radio program, referred to as the "California Caravan".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Clara cherry strike of 1933</span> Labor action in California

In 1933 there was a cherry strike in Santa Clara, California. The main overview of the events in Santa Clara was an agricultural strike by cherry pickers against the growers or employers. As the events of the labor strike unfolded, the significance of the strike grew beyond that of the workers themselves into a broader scope within America.

Maria Moreno was an American farmworker and labor organizer. She was the first woman farmworker hired to be a union representative.

Pat Chambers was an influential labor organizer and Communist Party member in the 1930s in California. He was a key figure in some of the largest California agricultural strikes of 1933. Chambers was the inspiration for the character "Mac" in John Steinbeck's 1936 novel, In Dubious Battle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farmworkers in the United States</span>

Farmworkers in the United States have unique demographics, wages, working conditions, organizing, and environmental aspects. According to The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health in Agricultural Safety, approximately 2,112,626 full-time workers were employed in production agriculture in the US in 2019 and approximately 1.4 to 2.1 million hired crop workers are employed annually on crop farms in the US. A study by the USDA found the average age of a farmworker to be 33. In 2017, the Department of Labor and Statistics found the median wage to be $23,730 a year, or $11.42 per hour.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pichardo, Nelson (1995). "The Power Elite and Elite-Driven Countermovements: The Associated Farmers of California during the 1930s". Sociological Forum. 10 (1): 21–49. doi:10.1007/BF02098563. JSTOR   684757. S2CID   144881137.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Starr, Kevin (1996). Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 162.
  3. ↑ Kushner, Sam (1975). The Long Road to Delano. New York: International Publishers. p. 68. ISBN   0-7178-0423-2.
  4. 1 2 3 Chambers, Clark (1952). California Farm Organizations. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 44–45.
  5. 1 2 3 Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor,” Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor. United States Senate. Part 52. Los Angeles CA, 1940. US Government Printing Office, DC 1940
  6. 1 2 3 Daniel, Cletus (1981). Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 251.
  7. ↑ John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath", Penguin Classics (2006 edition), note 2 to Chapter 22, p. 462.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.