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DESCRIPTION:50th Anniversary of Grape Strike, The Past, Present and Future \n 2015 
 marks the 50th anniversary of the historic Grape Strike. The strike was 
 launched on September 8, 1965, in the Filipino Community Hall by the 
 Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), AFL-CIO, in the small 
 farming town of Delano in the California Central Valley.  This strike 
 followed an earlier AWOC strike in the Coachella Valley.  Both strikes were 
 led by a Filipino labor leadership composed of Larry Itliong, Benjamin 
 Gines, Pete Velasco, and Philip Vera Cruz, veterans of the decades-long 
 struggle to bring collective-bargaining rights to this country’s 
 agricultural sector.\n The strikes highlighted the ongoing fight for basic 
 workers rights, including minimum wage, overtime pay, sick time and 
 recognition of their union. The strike was expanded when AWOC leadership 
 urged the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and its president, Cesar 
 Chavez, to merge forces by joining its picket-line.  The merger of these 
 two major organizations subsequently became the United Farmworkers, 
 AFL-CIO.  The ‘65 strike and subsequent grape boycott received support 
 from workers’ organization both in the U.S. and around the world. This 
 strike came to be the largest agricultural workers strike since the 
 1930’s and brought about a mass mobilization focused not only on 
 conditions on the job, but the living conditions of those workers who toil 
 to put food on our nation’s table. \n\nThe grape boycott was massive and 
 comprehensive.  For 5 years, anyone with any labor consciousness never 
 touched a grape.\n\n Our program will summarize the victories of the 1965 
 Grape Strike and its aftermath.  In the end, the initial Filipino 
 leadership was all but gone marking the decline of the UFW as a militant, 
 fighting union for all agricultural workers.  We will then focus on the 
 reasons and causes for the eventual decline of the UFW and its impact on 
 this country’s agricultural workforce. \n Today, the vast majority of 
 agricultural workers face the very same issues that they did in 1965, 
 including the lack of union protection and representation.  Moreover, the 
 courts and politicians in California have swung to the Right, becoming the 
 mouthpiece of corporate Agribusiness.  Our forum will examine what is 
 needed to rebuild the labor struggle within our agricultural sector.\n 
 Panel Speakers include; Al Rojas, an original founder of the UFW; Mary Jane 
 Galviso, Farmer, Ilokano Farms & Flipina agricultural worker; Howard 
 Keylor, former ILWU Local 10 member, who was personally involved and 
 acquainted with many of the Filipino labor leadership.\nFilm One 
 Generation's Time: The Legacy of Silme Domingo & Gene Viernes will be shown 
 again. (Check the detail on 7/17 schedule of this film at 
 http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/06/19/18773731.php\nSee also: 
 \nhttp://www.ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=cc_his_research&b_no=10482\nhttp://www.laborfest.net/2015/2015schedule.htm\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/06/20/18773753.php
SUMMARY:Laborfest: 50th Anniversary of Grape Strike
LOCATION:Manilatown Center - 868 Kearny St., San Francisco.  Buses: 8, 10, 12, 30, 
 41, 45.\n
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/06/20/18773753.php
DTSTART:20150719T010000Z
DTEND:20150719T030000Z
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