Today in labor history June 4 (CA)The first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history

June 4

Massachusetts becomes the first state to establish a minimum wage - 1912

The House of Representatives approves the Taft-Hartley Act. The legislation allows the President of the United States to intervene in labor disputes. President Truman vetoed the law but was overridden by Congress - 1947


The AFL-CIO opens its new headquarters building, in view of the White House - 1956

Gov. Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights. The legislation came after years of effort by the United Farm Workers union - 1975


No man in this century has had more of an impact on the lives of Hispanic Americans, and especially farmworkers, than the legendary Cesar Chavez. The Fight in the Fields tells of Chavez and his union’s struggles: to raise farmworker pay; to win union recognition from savagely resistant grape and lettuce growers; to stop the use of deadly pesticides that were killing children in the fields. The pacifist Chavez endured several month-long fasts to counteract what he saw as a growing tendency toward violence in the farmworker movement, and many think those heroic acts contributed to his early death, at the age of 64. In the UCS bookstore now.