Local 11’s van served as medical support during
a United Farm Workers march for greater leverage in contract negotiations.
Local 11 Joins UFW
for Historic Solidarity March
January/February 2003 IBEW
Journal
Volunteers from Local 11, Los Angeles, joined a
10-day United Farm Workers march that ultimately led to a new state
law giving farm workers greater leverage in contract negotiations.
The trek traced the steps of UFW founder Cesar Chavez’s historic
1966 march for farm workers’ rights. At first, it appeared
that Governor Gray Davis (D-California) would not sign the legislation,
said Local 11 organizer Bob Oedy. But the publicity generated by
the group, which numbered into the hundreds, convinced Davis to
disappoint the powerful California growers and side with the workers.
The bill, giving farm workers arbitration rights in negotiations
for farm labor contracts, is now law.
"I’ll guarantee this march had something to do with
that," Oedy said.
IBEW Local 11, the only building trades union to join the march,
walked beside UFW members, children and retirees, eating traditional
Mexican fare and sleeping on church floors along the way from Stockton
north to the state capital of Sacramento. They marched 15 miles
a day in mid-August in temperatures that reached 105 degrees. The
San Joaquin valley route led the marchers through the state’s
most fertile agricultural lands.
"It was great and I was proud to be part of it," Oedy
said.
Local 11 brought along its eye-catching 15-passenger van decorated
in stars and stripes. Along the march, the van doubled as a first
aid station and carried a nurse. Among the IBEW marchers was retired
Local 11 member John Sanderson who was recovering from open-heart
surgery.
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