Agricultural & Allied Unions

man in a hat is kneeling among the green been rows with a bushel of picked beans — Ken Light, photographer. *Farm workers at Thomas Farm, Vineland, Colorado View 20 images in sequence,* 1990. Italian Americans in the West Project collection (AFC 1989/022). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

For the purposes of this guide this page includes unions in the agricultural sector and those dealing in the food and agribusiness sectors. This is a highly abbreviated history of some of the unions, but does include workers in the canning and food distribution trades. There are organizations that have not been included, but we have tried to include some of the larger ones and provide dates and history, as well as some of the names of the most notable people or events as searching on those can provide another way to research the union and its activities. The histories of a number of the unions in this sector do not always have clear lines in terms of industries that are involved which is why several of the groups mentioned below don't seem to obviously be in the food or agricultural sector.

United Farm Workers of America (UFW)

The UFW was founded in 1966 as a merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). The NFWA, founded in 1962 and led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, was predominantly made up of Mexican migrant workers. The AWOC was also founded in 1962 and it was led by Larry Itliong and represented predominantly Filipino farmworkers. Of note was a 1965 strike by workers of the AWOC in Delano, CA where the NFWA went on strike in support of the AWOC.

Cannery Worker's and Farm Laborer's Union, Local 7

This union was founded as the Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union, Local 18257 of the American Federation of Labor and represented Filipino cannery workers in Alaska. It was affiliated with the UCAPAWA, then the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers, and then the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)

The RWDSU was founded in 1937 and its history represents workers in diverse industries including food an allied trades. Some of their more prominent actions were the Montgomery Ward strike in 1943 and their activities in New York City related Amazon HQ2. Their history is tied to a number of unions including:

Playthings, Jewelry and Novelty Workers Union
Distributing, Processing and Office Workers Union
Distributive, Processing, and Office Workers of America (1937-1950)
United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) union was founded in 1937 to unite food processing workers under a single organization. In 1944, the name changed to Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA) and by 1950 it was folded into the Distributive and Processing Workers of America.

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM)

The Bakery and Confectionery Workers International Union of America was formed in 1886 and represents workers in the bakery, confectionery, tobacco, and grain milling industries in North America. In 1969, it merged with American Bakery and Confectionery Workers’ International Union which was founded in 1957, and in 1978, it merged with Tobacco Workers International Union that had been founded in 1895. In 1999, it merged with two other unions, the American Federation of Grain Millers and the National Council of Grain Processors (formerly American Federation of Grain Processors).

United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW)

This union was founded in 1979, but its history traces back to the Packinghouse workers including the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMCBW—sometimes shortened to Amalgamated Meat Cutters (AMC) that operated from 1897–1979. Amalgamated absorbed several other unions, including the United Leather Workers' International Union, the International Fur and Leather Workers Union, the National Agriculture Workers Union in 1960, and the United Packinghouse Workers of America in 1968 which had been formed in 1943. In 1979, the AMCBW merged with the Retail Clerks International Union and took on its current name. Their most notable strike—referenced in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle—began in July 1904 when workers in Chicago went on strike and ended up as a defeat for the union on September 6, 1904. It currently represents those who work in groceries, healthcare, cannabis, packing/processing, the chemical industry, distilleries/wineries, pharmacies, booksellers, and retail workers.

The Unions Today

If you are looking to research the current activities of any of the organizations, union websites and articles are going to be your best resources.

Below are the web pages that represent the organizations mentioned above. There are more general resources related to labor history that may include discussions related to the above organizations on the Internet Resources page. Additionally, the Research Collections page will include links to research institutions that contain significant labor related material.

Print Resources

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available. Many of the labor organizations published their own magazines targeted at members, but we have not included all of them below. Search the catalog to identify those titles.

Cannery Women, Cannery Lives by Vicki L. Ruiz
Call Number: HD6515.F72 U547 1987
ISBN: 0826310060
Published/Created: 1987-11-01
This dramatic and turbulent history of UCAPAWA is a major contribution to the new labor history in its carefully documented account of minority women controlling their union and regulating their working lives. - Description from the publisher
Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; a Selective Bibliography by Wayne State University
Call Number: Z8164.9 .F63 1974
Published/Created: 1974
A revision and expansion of the bibliography, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, privately printed by the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs of Wayne State University in January 1970.
Challenge & Change : the History of the Tobacco Workers International Union by Stuart Bruce Kaufman
Call Number: HD6515.T6 K38 1986
Published/Created: 1986
The author was an acting historian of the United States Department of Labor and was assistant director for archival work at the George Meany Center where he edited the papers of labor leader Samuel Gompers and A Vision of Unity. This looks at more institutional operations from the beginning and less analysis and more historical but does look at the shift in consumer preferences from cigars to cigarettes and how that may have affected the union and its effectiveness.
Collections of the United Farm Workers of America. Series 2, Papers of the United Farm Workers of America Work Department, 1969-1975 [microform]. by United Farm Workers of America. Work Dept. United Farm Workers Work Department records
Call Number: HD1525 Microfilm 2011/155
Published/Created: 1969-1975
Correspondence, clippings, memoranda, reports, financial papers, speeches, pamphlets, minutes, and other materials relating to the United Farm Workers of America.
The Crusades of Cesar Chavez by Miriam Pawel
Call Number: HD6509.C48 P38 2014
ISBN: 9781608197101
Published/Created: 2014-03-25
A searching portrait of an iconic figure long shrouded in myth by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of an acclaimed history of Chavez's movement. Cesar Chavez founded a labor union, launched a movement, and inspired a generation. He rose from migrant worker to national icon, becoming one of the great charismatic leaders of the 20th century. Two decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant Latino leader in US history. Yet his life story has been told only in hagiography--until now. In the first comprehensive biography of Chavez, Miriam Pawel offers a searching yet empathetic portrayal. Chavez emerges here as a visionary figure with tragic flaws; a brilliant strategist who sometimes stumbled; and a canny, streetwise organizer whose pragmatism was often at odds with his elusive, soaring dreams. He was an experimental thinker with eclectic passions--an avid, self-educated historian and a disciple of Gandhian non-violent protest. Drawing on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, this superbly written life deepens our understanding of one of Chavez's most salient qualities: his profound humanity. Pawel traces Chavez's remarkable career as he conceived strategies that empowered the poor and vanquished California's powerful agriculture industry, and his later shift from inspirational leadership to a cult of personality, with tragic consequences for the union he had built. The Crusades of Cesar Chavez reveals how this most unlikely American hero ignited one of the great social movements of our time. - Description from the publisher
Earnings and Hours in Pacific Coast Fish Canneries by Arthur T. Sutherland
Call Number: HD6093 .A35 no. 186
Published/Created: 1941
Available online from the Hathi Trust External
This title looks specifically at 1938 and 1939 for Washington state and California, though there is information on tuna canning in Hawaii. Some earnings and hours data is presented by gender.
Labor Union Periodicals Part 3, Food and agricultural industries
Microform & Electronic Resources Center
A guide to the microfilm edition of Labor union periodicals. Part 3, Food and agricultural industries.
MicRR guide no.: 461.
Organized Agriculture and the Labor Movement Before the UFW by Dionicio Nodín Valdés; Dionicio Nodín Valdés
Call Number: HD1527.C2 V35 2011
ISBN: 9780292726390
Published/Created: 2011-07-01
Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, and California share the experiences of conquest and annexation to the United States in the nineteenth century and mass organizational struggles by rural workers in the twentieth. Organized Agriculture and the Labor Movement before the UFW offers a comparative examination of those struggles, which were the era's longest and most protracted campaigns by agricultural workers, supported by organized labor, to establish a collective presence and realize the fruits of democracy. Dionicio Nodín Valdés examines critical links between the earlier conquests and the later organizing campaigns while he corrects a number of popular misconceptions about agriculture, farmworkers, and organized labor. He shows that agricultural workers have engaged in continuous efforts to gain a place in the institutional life of the nation, that unions succeeded before the United Farm Workers and César Chávez, and that the labor movement played a major role in those efforts. He also offers a window into understanding crucial limitations of institutional democracy in the United States, and demonstrates that the widespread lack of participation in the nation's institutions by agricultural workers has not been due to a lack of volition, but rather to employers' continuous efforts to prevent worker empowerment. Organized Agriculture and the Labor Movement before the UFW demonstrates how employers benefitted not only from power and wealth, but also from imperialism in both its domestic and international manifestations. It also demonstrates how workers at times successfully overcame growers' advantages, although they were ultimately unable to sustain movements and gain a permanent institutional presence in Puerto Rico and California. - Description from the publisher
Organizing Asian American Labor by Chris Friday
Call Number: HD6515.C27 F75 1994
ISBN: 1566391393
Published/Created: 1994-05-12
Between 1870 and 1942, successive generations of Asians and Asian Americans--predominantly Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino--formed the predominant body of workers in the Pacific Coast canned-salmon industry. This study traces the shifts in the ethnic and gender composition of the cannery labor market from its origins through it decline and examines the workers' creation of work cultures and social communities. Resisting the label of cheap laborer, these Asian American workers established formal and informal codes of workplace behavior, negotiated with contractors and recruiters, and formed alliances to organize the workforce. Whether he is discussing Japanese women workers' sharing of child-care responsibilities or the role of Filipino workers in establishing the Cannery and Field Workers Union, Chris Friday portrays Asian and Asian American workers as people who, while enduring oppressive restrictions, continually attempted to shape their own lives. In the series Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ. - Description from the publisher
The Tobacco Worker by Tobacco Workers International Union
Call Number: 01804 MicRR
Holdings: most issues date from the 1960s and 1970s.
This was the membership publication and covered topics of interest related to an assortment of issues.
The Union of Their Dreams by Miriam Pawel
Call Number: HD6515.A292 U546 2009
Published/Created: 2009-10-13
Drawing on original documents, tapes, and interviews, the author chronicles the rise of the UFW during the days of civil rights struggles, the antiwar movement, and student activism in the 1960s and '70s. From the fields, the churches, and the classrooms, hundreds were drawn to la causa by the charismatic Chavez. The UFW, however, was ripped apart by the same man who built it, as Chavez proved unable to make the transition from movement icon to union leader. Pawel traces the lives of several key members of the crusade, using their stories to weave together a powerful portrait of a movement and the people who made it.
The Untold Story of Larry Itliong by Cristina Oxtra
Call Number: HD6509.I85 O98 2023
Published/Created: 2023-01-01
You may have read about Cesar Chavez's leadership in organizing the well-known Delano Grape Strike and Boycott of the 1960s. But did you know it began as a strike led by Larry Itliong? He was a Filipino labor organizer who had also been working with grape pickers in California at the time. With key biographical information and related historical events, this book will uncover Itliong's story and show how it connects to Chavez's story.
A Vision of Unity : the History of the Bakery and Confectionery Workers International by Stuart Bruce Kaufman
Call Number: HD6515.B2 K38 1986
Published/Created: 1986
The author was an acting historian of the United States Department of Labor and was assistant director for archival work at the George Meany Center where he edited the papers of labor leader Samuel Gompers and Challenge and Change: The History of the Tobacco Workers International Union. This looks at more intuitional operations from the beginning and less analysis and more historical.
The Words of César Chávez by Richard J. Jensen; John C. Hammerback
Call Number: HD6509.C48 A25 2002
ISBN: 1585441694
Published/Created: 2002-05-09
Cesar Chavez's relentless campaign for social justice for farm workers and laborers in the United States marked a milestone in U.S. history. Through his powerful rhetoric and impassioned calls to action, Chavez transformed as well as persuaded and inspired his audiences. In this first published anthology, Richard J. Jensen and John C. Hammerback present Chavez in his own terms. Through this collection of words and analysis of his major speeches and writings, Jensen and Hammerback reveal the rhetorical qualities and underlying rhetorical dynamics of a master communicator. They also offer a rich source of the history of the farm workers' movement that Chavez led from the early 1960s to his death in 1993. The Words of Cesar Chavez offers an important new resource for scholars of public discourse, Chicano studies, and Chavez himself. It complements the authors' earlier study, The Rhetorical Career of Cesar Chavez, by providing the primary materials for that rhetorical profile of Chavez. Through his own words, Jensen and Hammerback present Chavez doing what he did best: teaching and influencing audiences who would enact his agenda to create a new and better world. Description from the publisher

Library of Congress Digital Resources

The following resources created and digitized by the Library of Congress can be used to find out more about the man as well as the events of the day.

Cesar Chavez: Labor Leader Born
This is an entry in Business Reference's This Month in Business History guide about labor leader Cesar Chavez.
Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers
Historic American newspapers selected and contributed by state partners in the National Digital Newspaper Program. You can do an Advanced search on the names of individual unions or people as well as events like strikes and lockouts.
Digital Image Collections
Find photographs and prints in the Library of Congress collection by doing an Advanced search on the names of individual unions or people as well as events like strikes and lockouts. picket, picketing, strikes, union, union workers, workers, industrial workers, specific strikes, names of people involved.
Dolores Huerta, Labor Activist Born
This is an entry in Business Reference's This Month in Business History guide about Dolores Huerta labor leader and co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association.
A Latinx Resource Guide: Civil Rights Cases and Events in the United States
This is a guide from the Library's Hispanic Division and includes a few pages of interest including on one the Bracero Program and another on the United Farm Workers Union.
United Farm Workers Organizing Committee Recognized by AFL-CIO
This is a This Month in Business History entry about a the United Farm Workers (UFW) which became the first recognized farm workers union accepted into the AFL-CIO in August 1972.

Organized Labor Since the 19th Century: A Research Guide