Abstract
The historiography of the Farm Labor Movement, the upsurge in Hispanic farm worker labor organizing in the 1960's and 1970's, emphasizes its historical uniqueness as an isolated social movement. This project is a comparison between the two main exponents of this movement, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, with a modern campaign by the United Food and Commercial Workers towards organizing the primarily Guatemalan workforce of a Case Farms chicken-processing factory in Ohio. Differences between these three movements lie in the different ethnic composition of the surrounding community, the acceptance of undocumented workers by the labor movement, the nature of employment, and the legal dimensions of American immigration. Changes in these factors occur both between cases and over time, making the extent to which these groups have been able to create lasting campaigns a historical question and narrative. As a three-case comparison, my main sources are newspaper articles and book sections, with interviews and footage being used in the case of the UFCW. The main method is creating a historical comparison based on existing research and scholarship.
Advisor
King, Shannon
Department
History
Recommended Citation
Hanson, Daniel, "Unorganizable and the Unrepresented: the Evolving Relationship of Hispanics and the American Labor Movement" (2012). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 3834.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/3834
Disciplines
Ethnic Studies | Social History
Keywords
unions, hispanics, social movements, labor history, agriculture, farm labor, poultry processing
Publication Date
2012
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2012 Daniel Hanson