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Dolores Huerta, Rudolpho “‘Corky’’ Gonzales, and Cesar Chavez at June 7 rally.

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Larry Frank/Photon West

Victory in the Valley

By JUAN LOPEZ

CALEXICO, CALIF.
A’ eyes were intent on the man who
Th had brought them together.
€ir faces, scorched by the rays of
un, partly hidden under the shadows
Stark no wide-rimmed sombreros, were
ish an €minders of their Indian and Span-
Cestry.

by aa faces were a landscape drawn
thai and of nature. On them were lines
chee kat through like rivers and canals;
sinking Mm some, were like rolling slopes
in U8 into a fertile valley of whiskers,

In
hing’ Were soft and round like sand

ss put More important were the hands
ugh, leathery, baked a deep brown,

beaten
into ife-ti
Or Work. a square mold by a life-time

the s

) 2 aus balmy Sunday afternoon (June
ig ae border town, at the Jefferson
Were Chool auditorium, their hands
at ease. Z
Pelle. pace, their hands were not com-
Prunin © do the daily work of sowing,
few ae Picking for the benefit of those
t the this world who reap great profits
nee sc of ‘their health and lives. For
eae €y were doing exactly what they

ased with their hands.
TA a leader, Cesar Chavez, had said,
este qj icamos la victoria del valle, hoy,
flignan a nuestros antecesores quienes
og abatidos, encarcelados, golpea-
ane a algunos casos han sido asesina-
Valle We dedicate the victory of this
i Y, today, this day,”’ to our ancestors
and oa been ‘‘worn out, jailed, beaten,
Some cases assassinated.’’)
€ir response was one — loud, en-
astic applause.
a 200 attempts to organize farm-
€rs in the Imperial Valley in the last
Beets had met with failure and, as their
2 iss had stated, sometimes, resulted
agre agedy. But, now they had won an
of Pewsent signed in the blood and sweat
Ose who came before them.
Abbati Bros. Produce Co., a grower
fae Imperial Valley, had recognized
= F union, the United Farm Workers
bane zing Committee, as their sole
€alning agent.
whole year of organizing had paid
se Melons ripen early in June. On Thurs-
bone 4, Manuel Chavez, Ceasar’s
ial sy and strike director in the Imper-
b alley, went to the melon fields of
atti Bros. and led a walk-out.
€ grower, used every trick to try

thusi

in

Off

and avert a rotten crop. He hired stu-
dents and other young people to take the
place of striking workers. But soon he
had to release those under 14, when the
union got word of his action, which is in
violation of the child labor laws. He upped
wages from $1.65 an hour, standard before
the strike, to $2 an hour. He requested
that school authorities close down El
Centro High School early so that students
could leave for the fields to work as scabs.
His request was denied.

On Saturday, June 6, union organizers
led another mass walk-out, this time in
the grower’s watermelon fields. After
this Abatti signed.

The union was recognized as the sole
bargaining agent for the workers and the
workers went back to work at wages of
$2 an hour. Negotiations for a full con-
tract are scheduled to begin in El Centro
on July 14.

The employer has also dropped two
suits filed against the union for $250,000
exemplary damages and $30,000 a day in
real damages.

Other growers have not been so quick
to come to the negotiating table. That
struggle remains to be won. But union

~ officials are certain that it will be won,

and soon. The ranchers’ will undoubtedly
use, as they have in the past, scabs, suits,
and injunctions to break the will of the
workers.

Abatti Bros. did resort to obtaining
a court order to enjoin the strikers from

‘picketing. The judge who granted the in-

junction did so on the basis of a law sel-
dom cited.

A section of this law reads as follows:

‘« one must so use his own rights as
not to infringe on the rights of others.”
This phrase now sounds amusing: at the
time the injunction was granted, it must
have seemed like an ironic reminder of

the kind of people who really rule this~

country.

It is one thing to see Chavez, presi-
dent of the farmworkers union, talking
to newsman at a press conference; it is
quite another to see and hear him talking
to his own people, the campesinos, es-
pecially at a gathering called to celebrate
a victory.

He told his people: ‘‘En un solo acto
todo ha sido recapturado, y todo ha sido
vengado.”’

(‘In a single act all has been recap-
tured, and all has been avenged.’’)

“Todo lo que se ha afincado aqui,”
Chavez dijo, ‘“‘se ha afincado a fuerza
del sudor.”’

(‘All that has. been won here,’’ Chavez
said, ‘‘is a product of our sweat.’’)

Other speakers at the victory celebra-
tion echoed Chavez’ words.

Hector Reis, chairman of the cele-
bration, told the crowd by way of intro-
ducing Jerry Bresheares, secretary-
treasurer of Local 78B of the Fresh Fruit
and Vegetable Workers, that there is
‘una sola clase, la clase trabajadora,”’
sin distincion de credo, raza, o religion
(‘‘a single class, the working class,”
without distinction to creed, race, or re-
ligion. )

And Bresheares, who spoke of his
union’s commitment not to pack the mel-
ons coming from struck ranches, assured
the audience, ‘‘Together we’re going to
beat every grower in the valley.”

Here was a concrete example of how
working people, regardless of national-
ity, bound together by a common cause,
became the force to inhibit the enemy
class, the ranchero, the partoncito, the
grower, the Safeway Board of Directors,
and the Bank of America Directors.

Dolores Huerta, vice-president of the
farmworkers union, recognizing the com-
mon history that binds Chicanos and
Mejicanos together, said, ‘“‘La lucha no
es solo de los campesinos pero de toda la
Mejicanada.”’ (The struggle is not only
of the farmworkers but of all Mexican
people. )

S

A great show of solidarity was ex-
hibited by the Mexican workers who live
across the border below the Rio Grande.
Unlike previous. years, they refused to
cross the border and scab on their striking
brothers in the north.

During the crucial hours of this three
day strike, radio stations blared to the
north and to the south. In the north they
were urging the workers to cross the
border, to come and pick the highly per-
ishable melons; in the south the stations
called on the Mejicanos to stay home.

Chavez declared, ‘“‘The will of the
worker, of the farmworker has proven
itself here.’’ This victory became a real-
ity thanks to the ‘“‘power of the masses,
and in this case the power of the farm-
workers.’ He said their victory will be
like a flame ina dry valley. It will spread
until it catches the imagination of the
farmworkers in all ranches of this coun-
try and one single farmworkers union is

forged from California to New York.

‘“‘Now is the time to strike,”’ he told
the audience. ‘‘But,’’ he warned, after a
victory ‘‘many times we forget the fu-
ture.”’

“T ask,’’ he added, ‘‘that you commit
yourselves to sacrifice a little more, I
ask that you be ready to struggle,’’ he
said. ‘‘Now we must work very hard’
because if we continue to struggle, one
day soon we will gain ‘‘one of the most
astonishing victories,”’ we will forge ‘‘one
single union for the farmworkers of the
United States.”

And one day soon, he added, “‘they will
give us what is ours,”’ and ‘‘you will be
the martyrs, the pilgrims.”

“‘Now the ranchers are talking pills
to calm their nerves,’’ he said, because
you ‘‘have established a principle that
cannot be erased — the first time in 60
years that a contract has been achieved
in Imperial Valley.

Chavez said this victory ‘‘serves as
an impulse, an example of the solidarity
that exists among the working masses”’
as a precondition toward achieving even
more victories.

“You are,’’ Chavez concluded, “‘the
yeast from the bread of hope, and who-
ever eats from this bread will never again
be exploited.”’

When Chavez finished his speech,
those who were sitting rose to their feet
and applauded. Then, in rythm, they
clapped together as one, the campesinos
and the students, the Mejicanos, who
were in the great majority, the anglos,
the Filipinos and the only black that could
be seen, and they kept on faster and more
determined, until their clapping became
music, a song, words uttered from the
depths of their past.

Men and women raised their voices
to the tune of Nosotros Venceremos (We
Shall Overcome).

Arms crossed the people’s bodies,
as they stretched out towards their neigh-
bors; hands clasped hands; and bodies,
human bodies filled with the sweat scent
of victory, in rows swinging as one, sway-
ing sideways, with each new stanza bulg-
ing with strength and power and force
like waves out at sea beginning to billow
with the coming of a tempest.

If theré ever was, now there was no
turning back. When Chavez asked his
people, “‘Seguimos o paramos?” (‘‘Do.

we keep going or do we.stop?”), their

reply was ene, unswerving, thunderous

call fer ‘“fiuelga!”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 31—Page 5