This is the untold story of the Delano grape strike. In her book ' The Farmworkers' Journey,' Ann Aurelia López writes that by 1977, the United Farm Workers won over 180 separate contracts in several industries, including grape, lettuce, tomato and strawberry. And although some of their successes were short-lived, farm workers across the United States saw the effect of the Delano grape strike and went on to push for their own collective reforms. That dispute ended in part to intervention by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti, who. And in a show of class solidarity, they were joined by Mexican-American workers who refused to allow the California grape growers to instill a racist division among the workers.Īfter several years of strikes and boycotts, Delano grape workers declared victory. The strike is the first major labor disruption for the district since UTLA teachers went on strike for six days in 2019.

Faced with an average annual income of $1,400 and with wages falling under the federal minimum wage, the workers believed that they had nothing left to lose and maintained the strike, per History of Yesterday. The Volunteer writes that many of the strikers were older and single Filipino men, known as Manongs, who remained unmarried due to anti-miscegenation laws.

United farm workers strike