Cooper on UFW

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dissonance
Rotting Legacy
Time may have arrived for Cesar Chavez's UFW to step aside
by MARC COOPER

The L.A. Times has just finished running a bang-up four-part takedown
on the United Farm Workers union that was directly inspired by -- if
not in great part derived from -- our own reporting on the subject
last summer ("Sour Grapes," August 12-18, 2005) as well as by a
groundbreaking series in 2004 by the Bakersfield Californian.

One of the imperial prerogatives of the Times is to never, ever, under
any circumstances, acknowledge that any of its work has relied on the
previous reporting of other newspapers. So I can't claim I was
surprised by the Times' pretending to have done this series all on its
own. That's the standard M.O.

That said, I was quite pleased to see our local behemoth finally get
around to an important story that should have and easily could have
been told long ago. The Times, of course, did significant new and
independent reporting, and the picture it paints of the union that
carries Cesar Chavez's legacy is appropriately grim and depressing.
Reaching the same conclusions we did in these pages last summer, the
Times found that the UFW has long strayed from its original course of
protecting California farm workers and that it cynically cashes in on
the legacy and mystique of the Chavez name to fund a network of
"movement" operations that are dominated by the Chavez family and its
friends. This interwoven web of agencies builds housing (with nonunion
workers) for non-farm workers; it rents itself out to Democratic
political campaigns, runs radio stations, merchandises the legacy of
Chavez, sells rather useless ID cards to undocumented workers, has
served as paid lobbyist for a casino, and occasionally raids other
union jurisdictions. But most important is what the UFW doesn't do:
organize farm workers into unions.

Jigger the math any way you want and you come to the same bottom line:
Though many of the hundreds of thousands of California field workers
have no legal status or protection, are often paid minimum wage or
less, and in some cases find themselves living in primitive camps of
plastic tents and lean-tos, the UFW represents barely more than 1
percent of the work force. It maintains not a single contract in its
traditional home base, the grape growers of the San Joaquin Valley.

Principal blame for the plight of California farm workers -- reduced
by decades of indifference and political neglect to their current
dismal status -- should not be handed off to the UFW. But the union
does bear a share of the responsibility. And that's why it's crucial
that those who care about the issues must be mature and sensible
enough to not blame the messenger. There will be some who will allege
that the Times' takedown of the UFW was a case of excessive force,
selective prosecution or outright racism.

Wrong. The Times series -- like its stunning coverage of Killer King
hospital -- was a crucial public service. This should be a wake-up
call for the UFW to either change its ways -- radically and
immediately -- or, otherwise, please step out of the way. The
prodigious fund-raising, direct-mail and PR/political campaigns of the
union create the damaging public impression that California field
workers are "taken care of," that just as the movement of MLK
successfully tore down de jure racism, the union of Cesar Chavez has,
at least, long ago won basic, humane treatment for the campesinos of
the Golden State.


Nothing could be further from the truth. California farm workers are
younger, poorer, less educated and less organized than ever in recent
history. The UFW, meanwhile, may have fewer members than ever in its
40-year history, but its income continues to grow. The bulk of that
revenue comes not from dues but from donations -- from voluntary
contributions from well-meaning liberals who cannot resist a
solicitation adorned with a grainy photo of Chavez and stamped with
the iconic black eagle of the union banner. Nothing feels more
redeeming after a pricey dinner on the Westside than to send off a few
bucks in an envelope to the heirs of Cesar Chavez.

Until now, the UFW has remained stone-deaf to its critics -- both
external and internal. The union's leadership -- and its auxiliary
agencies -- are completely in the grip of the Chavez family, making a
mockery of even the pretense of internal diversity and democracy, let
alone any sort of serious accountability. Two years ago, when the
Bakersfield Californian first blew the cover off the operation, the
UFW denounced the newspaper series as an unfair attack and undertook
no reforms -- not even cosmetic ones. When my article of last summer
once again pinged the union for its ineffectiveness and its nepotism,
its press manager did everything he could to undermine my credibility.
But the institutional weight of a four-part L.A. Times series is not
something that can be easily brushed off or pushed back with indignant
press releases from union headquarters.

This time around, the union will have to take the public critique
seriously and institute some real reform lest it flirt with
extinction. Those of us who are sympathetic to the ideals of Cesar
Chavez perhaps have the greatest responsibility to be honest with
ourselves and with the UFW. We achieve absolutely nothing by
apologizing for the UFW's failure or rationalizing the more venal
aspects of the Chavez family management. The next time one of the UFW
fund-raising letters comes your way, instead of writing a check, you
might want to write back a note to Chavez's son-in-law and current UFW
president Arturo Rodriguez. Tell him that as soon as he can show you a
concrete strategic plan to organize unions for California farm
workers, you will show him the money.
--
Jim Devine
"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an
intimate knowledge of its ugly side." -- James Baldwin