Cesar Chavez Chronology

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Cesar Chavez
Chronology
by
Jose Hernandez
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Cesar Chavezs Introduction.

• César Chávez (1927-1993), Mexican American labor
  leader and cofounder of the United Farm Workers
  of America (UFW) labor union. His work gained
  nationwide attention for migrant farmworkers and
  helped improve their working and living
  conditions.

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About his life.

• Chávez was born near Yuma, Arizona. During the
  Great Depression, his family lost their farm and
  became migrant farmworkers, moving from one place
  to another in search of work. Chávez was raised
  in migrant worker camps and left school after the
  eighth grade to work in the fields. He joined the
  U.S. Navy during World War II (1939-1945).

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FOUNDING OF THE UNION

• From 1952 until 1962, Chávez worked for the
  Community Service Organization, a Latino civil
  rights group. In 1962 Chávez and Dolores Huerta
  founded a farmworkers union, known as the
  National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). They
  hoped to establish a union that would provide
  field workers with better working and living
  conditions and change labor laws to give
  farmworkers more rights.

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STRIKE FOR GRAPE PICKERS

• In 1965 Chávez led 2,000 NFWA members on a strike
  in support of the Agricultural Workers Organizing
  Committee (AWOC) to demand better wages for
  wine-grape pickers in Delano, California.

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LEGAL REFORM

• In 1975 Chávez and his supporters pushed for
  passage of the California Agricultural Labor
  Relations Act. This law, the first of its kind in
  the United States, guaranteed farmworkers in
  California the right to join unions and bargain
  as a group. It also protected farmworkers from
  unfair labor practices.

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LATER EFFORTS

• Chávez continued to lead more boycotts in the
  1980s. However, he was criticized for not
  recruiting more union members, and the union lost
  much of its political influence. By the
  mid-1980s, membership in the UFW had dropped to
  about 15,000 people. In 1984 Chávez led the union
  in another grape boycott to rally public support
  against the use of pesticides. However, the
  boycott failed to generate much support.

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DEATH AND HONORS

• Chávez died in his sleep in 1993. In 1994
  President Bill Clinton posthumously awarded
  Chávez the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the
  nations highest civilian award. In 2000 the
  state of California declared March 31, Chávezs
  birthday, an official state holiday.