CHAVEZ, CESAR (ESTRADA)

born March 31, 1927, Yuma, Ariz., U.S. died April 23, 1993, San Luis, Ariz. organizer and leader of migrant American farm workers, largely Hispanic. Chavez, who was a farm labourer himself, began organizing farm workers in 1962, when he created the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). In 1966, the NFWA merged with an AFL-CIO group to form UFWOC, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO. In 1971 the latter organization became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Chavez' childhood was that of a typical migrant farm-labour family of Mexican-American descent; he lived in a succession of migrant camps and attended school sporadically. After two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Chavez returned to migrant farm work in Arizona and California. His initial training as an organizer was provided by the Community Services Organization (CSO) in California, a creation of Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. In 1958 he became general director of CSO but resigned four years later to found the NFWA. In September 1965 Chavez led California grape pickers out on a five-year-long strike and nationwide boycott of California grapes that attracted liberal support from throughout the country. Subsequent battles with lettuce growers, table-grape growers, and other agribusinesses were generally ended with the signing of bargaining agreements. In the late 1960s, however, the Teamsters entered the fields as a rival organizer, signing up farm workers for its own union, one more favourable to the growers. After much conflict, in the fields and in the courts, the UFW signed a peace pact with the Teamsters in 1977, giving the UFW the sole right to organize field hands. Meanwhile, trouble brewed within the UFW, which Chavez ran with an iron hand. Most of Chavez' top aides eventually resigned, and some of them formally charged him with staffing the organization with members of his own family. Chavez also developed interests in holistic medicine, encounter programs, vegetarianism, meditation, faith healing, and other rituals that he tried to press upon his official members. Union membership declined until union workers represented only about 10 percent of the pickers of California's table grapes.