Let history show that Fresno’s Gilbert Padilla was a key co-founder of United Farm Workers

The Bee last month published an article on the Affordable and Secure Food Act (ASFA) aimed at promoting the availability of farm labor. The proposed legislation would provide a pathway to permanent residency and stabilize wages.

Unfortunately, the article erred in propagating the widely held myth that only Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the United Farm Workers. Rarely is it mentioned that Gilbert Padilla, a trusted Chavez lieutenant, was also at the genesis of the movement. When Chavez abruptly resigned from the Community Service Organization in 1962, because it refused to organize farmworkers, Padilla was there. In a 1995 interview he described what Chavez related to him:

Padilla: I said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, what about us, I’m working for you.”

Chavez: Well, we’ll go do the farm workers.

Chavez: We’ll organize farm workers now. They don’t want to do it, so we’ll do it.

On Sept. 30, that year, the inaugural National Farm Worker Association (NFWA) convention was held in Fresno. Padilla secured the funds to register the association with the state. He and Huerta found an attorney to prepare the legal documents. In a letter she wrote to Chavez, Huerta corroborated Padilla’s role in NFWA’s birth.

Also, I spoke to Attorney Funke … and asked him about how much he would charge to file our Articles of Incorporation. … he said … $150 … He sounds like he has faith in our group too. This attorney is a very hard worker, and he is frank and honest. As Gil can tell you, as he discovered him.

In 1965, when Filipino workers decided to strike against Delano grape growers for better wages, Chavez deployed Padilla to learn more. Padilla arranged to hold the historic strike vote at a local church, with him conducting the meeting. Six months after the strike began, the NFWA and supporters marched 300 miles from Delano to Sacramento to publicize the plight of farm workers and galvanize support for the strike and boycott. Just 45 miles from their destination, a legendary phone call was made to Padilla. A representative from Schenley Inc. called Padilla to reach Chavez and announce they were willing to negotiate a contract. This would become the first ever farm worker-led contract in the nation.

Two years later, in 1967, Chavez dispatched Padilla to Starr County, Texas to lead a floundering melon strike. The struggle against the melon growers and Texas Rangers ended in successful litigation with Padilla as a plaintiff. The ruling found unconstitutional state laws that obstructed farm labor organizing.

As the grape boycott spread to the East Coast, Padilla was sent to lead the efforts in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Philadelphia. When Safeway, a boycott target, held its annual shareholders’ meeting in Baltimore in 1973, Padilla made a passionate speech to the president about how much he could do to help farm workers.

The next day a Baltimore Evening Sun columnist who witnessed the exchange wrote about Padilla:

He sees children picking lettuce when they should be in school. He sees labor camps unfit for habitation. He sees field workers dead before other workers in our society are dead. But above all, he sees the deprivation of dignity and hope built into the farm labor system. There is pain in his voice and passion in his eyes and one suspects there are scars on his soul.

It is ironic that the ASFA contains legislative elements that Padilla fought for almost 60 years ago. The bill would lower the cost and increase access to rural housing. Three months before the start of the Delano grape strike, Padilla led a rent strike for farm workers after the Tulare County Housing Authority decided to increase rent on dilapidated farm labor camps.

Padilla turned 95 years old on Dec. 21. He served as an officer in the union throughout his tenure. Whether a NFWA founding member is defined by chronological evidence, official duties, or significant impact, it is indisputable that Padilla earned this distinction. It is time to resolve that he was as much a founder of the NFWA as Chavez and Huerta. Until this history is corrected, the myth will continue.

Paul A. Garcia is a retired educator in Fresno.

Paul A. Garcia
Paul A. Garcia

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