Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers may seem synonymous. The charismatic leader headed up the union through strikes and boycotts that garnered nationwide attention and made him a labor icon. Former farm worker Frank Bardacke argues, however, that the history of the UFW needs to be understood from the bottom up. He reveals the mainly untold story of the UFW’s militant rank and file, who brought their own radical traditions to the union and clashed with union staff in ways that shaped the organization’s fate.
The United Farm Workers Was More Than Cesar Chavez: Sasha Lilley Interviews Frank Bardacke, Jacobin September 29, 2021