Dolores Huerta: A Lifetime of Union Organizing

Dolores Huerta: A Lifetime of Union Organizing

Born in April 1930, Dolores Huerta began her career as a labor organizer through her leadership in Stockton, California, at the Community Service Organization (CSO) in the late 1950s. CSO is a Mexican-American self-help group. Huerta was deeply involved in their many civic and educational programs, including registering voters and citizenship classes.

In 1962, in Delano, California, Huerta and CSO's executive director César E. Chávez, along with Larry Itliong, who founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union, together they co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), a union for agricultural workers. NFWA became a powerful advocate for agriculture workers' rights and was the precursor to the United Farm Workers (UFW) union.

With her skills as both a community organizer and negotiator, she persuaded Senator Phillip Burton and the California State Legislature to improve unemployment insurance, disability benefits, and workers' compensation benefits for farm workers. In 1963, the Burton-Huerta partnership resulted in legislation that overhauled the state's welfare system, mandating an increase in support for children by expanding eligibility under Aid to Families of Dependent Children (AFDC).

In 1966, Huerta and César led farm workers on a landmark 300-mile march from Delano to the California State Capitol in Sacramento, calling for a consumer boycott of grapes. The nonviolent action received national media coverage and galvanized widespread public support for the UFW movement.

Dolores Huerta: A Lifetime of Union Organizing chronicles Huerta's efforts to organize agriculture workers and her work with national and state leaders from the 1960s through the 1980s. Huerta continues to forge and nurture political support as a means to garner significant reform in labor laws and practices that benefit all working people.

This exhibition was organized in conjunction with the Phillip & Sala Burton Center for Human Rights, which focuses on the contributions of organized labor in promoting international human rights and social justice. This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of William Hough (1940–2 010), former director of the Phillip & Sala Burton Center for Human Rights.

Photography is not permitted.
©2011 by the San Francisco Airport Commission. All rights reserved

Bibliography
Kushner, Sam. Long Road to Delano. New York: International Publishers, 1975.
Pawel, Miriam. The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, Struggle in César Chávez's Farm Worker Movement. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.

Online resources:
farmworkermovement.us
lasculturas.com/biographies/214-civil-rights/113-dolores-huerta
dhuerta.hostcentric.com/dh_bio.htm