Stephen Colbert in Congress (1/9): Zoe Lofgren, Steve King (2010)

September 24, 2010 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.... Watch the full program: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/10/immigrant-farm-workers-stephen-co...

The United Farm Workers of America (UFWA) (Spanish: La Unión de Campesinos) is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez. This union changed from a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to that of a union of farmworkers almost overnight, when the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) went out on strike in support of the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by Larry Itliong in Delano, California who had previously initiated a grape strike on September 8, 1965. The NFWA and the AWOC, recognizing their common goals and methods, and realizing the strengths of coalition formation, jointly formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization eventually became the United Farm Workers and launched a boycott of table grapes that, after five years of struggle, finally won a contract with the major grape growers in California.

The union then brought in thousands more lettuce and vegetable workers in the Salinas and Imperial Valleys and orange workers in Florida employed by subsidiaries of Coca-Cola.

The union publicly adopted the principles of non-violence championed by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The union was poised to launch its next major campaign in the lettuce fields in 1970 when a deal between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the growers nearly destroyed it. Initially the Teamsters signed contracts with lettuce growers in the Salinas Valley, who wanted to avoid recognizing the UFW. Then in 1973, when the three year UFW contracts in the grapes expired, the grape growers signed contracts giving the Teamsters the right to represent the workers who had been members of the UFW.

The UFW responded with strikes, lawsuits and boycotts, including secondary boycotts in the retail grocery industry. The union struggled to regain the members it had lost in the lettuce fields; it never fully recovered its strength in grapes, due in some part to incompetent management of the hiring halls it had established that seemed to favor some workers over others.

The battles in the fields became violent, with a number of UFW members killed on the picket line. The violence led the state in 1975 to enact the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, creating an administrative agency, the ALRB, that oversaw secret ballot elections and resolved charges of unfair labor practices, like failing to bargain in good faith, or discrimination against activists.

On July 22, 2005, the UFW announced that it was joining the Change to Win Federation, a coalition of labor unions functioning as
an alternative to the AFL-CIO. On January 13, 2006, the union officially disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO. In contrast to other Change to Win-affiliated unions, the AFL-CIO neglected to offer the right of affiliation to regional bodies to the UFW. "AFL Discriminates Against UFW."

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[maroonoasis]

wow, there's a c-span 3?

[KOGR11]

hey did anyone hear the smirk at the "national security.." part?

[shockwave68516]

"The Eskimos" really?...they are the Inuit. Get it right congress.

[bluchismoon]

@aneroph dude, the film archive doesn't edit the videos, it shows all the footage from the moment the camera starts rolling to the moment it stops.

[xESOTERlC]

I'd like to see Steve King as blithely make such ignorant statements about "hard work" if he'd not come up in a posh, sheltered environment.

[xESOTERlC]

Wow.. Steve King is an idiot @ comment about eskimos and no fruit/vegetables.. but then, he's most likely a fundamentalist christian and has no understanding of evolution/adaptation

[3rw42]

@victorcharlie121 Mr. King really has no clue - farms are closing due to lack of labor - restricting immigration (illegal or legal) is just going to shut down more - not magically lead to Americans taking those jobs.

It seems like he ignored the lady who spoke first who seemed much more knowledgeable -her comments weren't partisan, she acknowledged the complexity- his comments were partisan and added nothing.

[ParanoidMenehune]

King says we should spend less time watching comedy central and focus on real hard labor jobs like crab fisherman. Looks like someone should spend less time watching Deadliest Catch and realize that migrant workers do work we wont do and get next to nothing in return.

[c0p13dn4m3]

@aneroph Some people are actually interested in the whole of it. And you call them lazy. Joke of the day.

[AndersAalborg]

@aneroph Really... you couldn't scrub to the part of the video you were interested in? Come on. Stop whining.

[iampleasant]

what is an 'unreal' american??

[olebra1393]

If this guy can only think of plumbing as a horrible job we must do then it makes sense why he's in congress.