Cesar Chavez :: Cesar Estrada Chavez Migrant Workers

Cesar Estrada Chavez was born March 31, 1927, on the small farm near Yuma, genus Arizona that his grandfather homesteaded during the 1880s. At age 10, life began as a migrant farm worker when his father lost the land during the Depression. These were bitterly poor age for Cesar, his parents, brothers and sisters. Together with thousands of other displaced families, the Chavez family migrated throughout the Southwest, laboring in fields and vineyards. Cesar left school after the eighth grade to help support his family.Cesar served as CSO subject field director in the late 1950s and early 1960s. But his dream was to create an organization to help farm workers whose suffering he had shared. In 1962, after impuissance to convince the CSO to commit itself to farm worker organizing, he resigned his paid CSO job, the first regular paying job he had. He moved to Delano, California where he founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).In September 1965, Cesars NFWA, with 1200 membe r families, joined an AFL-CIO sponsored union in a strike against major Delano area table and drink grape growers. Against great odds, Cesar led a successful five-year strike-boycott that rallied millions of supporters to the United Farm Workers. He forged a national support coalition of unions, church groups, students, minorities and consumers. The twain unions merged in 1966 to form the UFW, and it became affiliated with the AFL-CIO.Cesar called for a new worldwide grape boycott. By 1975, a Louis Harris poll showed 17 million American adults were ceremonial occasion the grape boycott. It forced growers to support then California Governor Jerry Browns collective bargaining law for farm workers, the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act. Since 1975, the UFW won approximately of the union elections in which it participated. Despite the farm labor boards bureaucratic delays, farm workers made progress. By the early 1980s farm workers numbered in the tens of thousands were working under UFW contracts enjoyed higher(prenominal) pay, family health coverage, pension benefits and other contract protections.In 1991, Cesar received the Aguila Azteca (The Aztec Eagle), Mexicos highest award presented to people of Mexican heritage who have made major contributions outside of Mexico. On August 8, 1994, Cesar became the second Mexican American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. President Bill Clinton presented this award posthumously.Cesar Chavez passed international on April 23, 1993, at the age of 66.