Dear brethren,
Under “Voices” in The Banner of May 2, 1969 the following sentence is found, “I am sure that (the statement) is made without any proof or knowledge on the part of the writer.” I was reminded of this statement when I read in the article. “Work, Workers and Missions” by Richard Forbes in TORCH AND TRUMPET of April, 1969, p. 20,
Indeed the most dynamic front in labor organization today is among the underpaid, underclothed, undereducated, overworked people who go, often whole families at a time, into the harvest ripened tomato fields of New Jersey and vineyards of California.
I will not go into much of the article beyond this, although it does contain some strangely worded statements and some very unclear theological implications. I do, however, want to comment on the above mentioned sentence. I have never been in the tomato fields of New Jersey, hence I could not comment on that, but I doubt strongly if Mr. Forbes has ever been in the vineyards of California, more particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, in which the “under…, under… , and over…” conditions are alleged to exist. If Mr. Forbes had taken the trouble to see for himself the conditions there and interviewed the workers, growers, business people and clergy of Delano, the center of these supposed evil conditions, I think he would have written in an entirely different vein, if at all. In my 48 years of residence in California I have never witnessed the things he describes.
The citation above could have been taken out of any of the speeches and writings of the Marxists Chavez, Valdez, Betty Aptheker, and Tom Kushner(confessed Communists), Carmichael, Walter Reuther and the Communist paper, Daily News, and the World Council of Churches also. I am sure that Mr. Forbes does not belong in this kind of company, especially not if he, according to a footnote in TORCH AND TRUMPET, is a contributing editor of The Guide, organ of the Christian Labour Association of Canada. Therefore he must have gained his information from certain press accounts which, as he and the CLAC well know, too often prefer to report “events” from a left-wing point of view and often print the “sensational,” even if this is not factual, rather than the true facts which are too tame to make “good news.”
Now what are the facts behind the news of these “terrible conditions” which have aroused Mr. Chavez (trained for six years in the Alinsky school of Marxism in Chicago) and his lieutenants to become so “concerned” for these “poor workers” described in Mr. Forbes’ article, and why did a boycott of California grapes become necessary?
The facts are:
(1) Farm workers in California are paid the highest farm wages in the continental United States (according to statistics obtained from U.S. Department of Agriculture records).
(2) Farm workers in California vineyards receive higher wages than the State average.
(3) Farm workers in California are covered by more protective laws than those of any other State.
(4) Housing and working conditions for table grape-workers are among the very best for farm workers anywhere.
(5) The boycott of California grapes became necessary because the workers in vineyards of California were not willing to join Mr. Chavez’ union, since they were well paid and well-treated, and could not possibly benefit by it. Mr. Chavez had worked for the organization of his union (called the United Farm Workers of California) for four years, and had completely failed. He then began to work on the employers, and tried to make them force their employees to join. In this they were not interested since they felt that the employees should have the right for themselves to join or not to join a union. As I understand union rules, the workers organize and the employer is not supposed to interfere in any way (NLRB rules). Strangely, in the case of the grape workers, Chavez is trying to force the employers to in turn force the employees to join a union they do not want. It is easy to see that there is something radically wrong in this situation.
The workers, in turn, especially after being threatened and abused by Chavez’ goon squads, decided to form their own organization, headed by Mr. Jose Mendoza, and called The Agricultural Workers Freedom to Work Association (AWFWA). Mr. Mendoza made the following statement for publication:
We, the farm workers, have never walked out of our jobs. Chavez does not represent us and we are one long way from starving. We are content with the progress we have made in the past without the Chavez organizing committee, which has only caused us anguish during our working hours and at home. We feel it is our constitutional right to be able to work for whom we choose without harassment and intimidation from the church, we, the farm workers, have never walked out of our jobs. Chavez does not represent us and we are one long way from starving. We are content with the progress we have made ill the past without the Chavez organizing committee, which has only caused us anguish during our working hours and at home. We feel it is our constitutional right to be able to work for whom we choose without harassment and intimidation from the church.
Then what is Chavez’ purpose in all this? There is literature available (see close of this contribution) which I would strongly urge anyone interested in this problem to obtain. In it you can find the true aims of Chavez and his cohorts, and they are the same as the purposes of those who foment many of the riots in the colleges. It may be described in the words, revolution and power. And this movement intends not only to destroy the grape growers. The citrus fruit growers have already been notified t hat they are next on the list, then others until all food growers and workers and store outlets will he controlled by one giant organization headed by Marxists and Communists. This reminds one of the biblical warning about the saints of God not being able to buy or sell without the sign of the beast on their foreheads.
After reading Mr. Forbes’ article I discussed it with one of the Christian Reformed ministers in the central U.S.A. and he was rather surprised at what I told him since the usually liberal press has apparently given the Chavez side only. It is, of course, more sensational, even if it is at the expense or the truth. I realized that possibly most people in the U.S. who have read about this have a similar impression. I thank Mr. Forbes therefore for having given me the excuse to write about this in TORCH AND TRUMPET, and thus furnish the other side of the picture.
For the migrant farm worker who follows the crops, the pay for those who work eight hours per day is easily $30–$40 per day ($10 per ton of wine grapes), and more if they are willing to work longer hours. Therefore these people arc far from being underpaid and overworked. If they are underclothed and underfed it must be because they have used their earnings for purposes other than family needs. If they arc undereducated they have not made use of the available educational opportunities in California, often geared to their special needs at considerable cost to the State.
As to “whole families at a time”—as Mr. Forbes mentions—this does not seem unusual to us, nor is it to be condemned as such. If it is, many of the Christian Reformed Church dairy people would have to be condemned, for as long as I have lived in California I have seen the children on the farms go to work with their fathers at the ages of ten years or a little above.
As to the merits of this, I believe many of America’s most outstanding men started at the bottom in their earlier years, and the families T have seen raised thus have been blessed and held together better than families where the young people grew up amidst luxuries without chores to be done.
Very simply, I believe that Mr. Forbes has gone along with propaganda rather than fact, and T do not think this to be helpful for anyone. I am not in any sense opposed to justice or fairness in the treatment of farm workers, be they ever so humble and ever so needy. On the contrary, I want to see them evangelized, helped, and treated decently and fairly. But I think that the story ought to be told accurately and objectively, not as it is told by someone like Mr. Chavez, whose conduct, speeches and purposes are not in the good interest of either employee or employer, not to mention the Cause of Jesus Christ.
GILBERT DEN DULK, M.D. Ripon, California
REFERENCES:
1. The Grapes (Communist Wrath in Delano) by Gary Allen (American Opinion, Belmont, Mass. 02178). 15¢
2. Sour Grapes. The move to control our food supply, by Rex T. Westerfield (same publishers). 15¢
3. Clergy Views of Delano and the Grape Boycott by Allen Grant and Murray Morris, LLB. (Rudell Publ. Co. P.O. Box 7811, Fresno, California 93727.) (Excellent booklet with statements by pastors, priests and rabbis in the involved area.) Price $1.
4. Violence at the Supermarket, avail, able free from the Consumers’ Rights Comm., 1100 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Washington D.C.
5. Fourteenth Report Un-American Activities in California 1967 (From Office of State Senator Hugh M. Burns, California State Legislature, Senate Office, Sacramento, California.) Free.
Under “Voices” in The Banner of May 2, 1969 the following sentence is found, “I am sure that (the statement) is made without any proof or knowledge on the part of the writer.” I was reminded of this statement when I read in the article. “Work, Workers and Missions” by Richard Forbes in TORCH AND TRUMPET of April, 1969, p. 20,
Indeed the most dynamic front in labor organization today is among the underpaid, underclothed, undereducated, overworked people who go, often whole families at a time, into the harvest ripened tomato fields of New Jersey and vineyards of California.
I will not go into much of the article beyond this, although it does contain some strangely worded statements and some very unclear theological implications. I do, however, want to comment on the above mentioned sentence. I have never been in the tomato fields of New Jersey, hence I could not comment on that, but I doubt strongly if Mr. Forbes has ever been in the vineyards of California, more particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, in which the “under…, under… , and over…” conditions are alleged to exist. If Mr. Forbes had taken the trouble to see for himself the conditions there and interviewed the workers, growers, business people and clergy of Delano, the center of these supposed evil conditions, I think he would have written in an entirely different vein, if at all. In my 48 years of residence in California I have never witnessed the things he describes.
The citation above could have been taken out of any of the speeches and writings of the Marxists Chavez, Valdez, Betty Aptheker, and Tom Kushner(confessed Communists), Carmichael, Walter Reuther and the Communist paper, Daily News, and the World Council of Churches also. I am sure that Mr. Forbes does not belong in this kind of company, especially not if he, according to a footnote in TORCH AND TRUMPET, is a contributing editor of The Guide, organ of the Christian Labour Association of Canada. Therefore he must have gained his information from certain press accounts which, as he and the CLAC well know, too often prefer to report “events” from a left-wing point of view and often print the “sensational,” even if this is not factual, rather than the true facts which are too tame to make “good news.”
Now what are the facts behind the news of these “terrible conditions” which have aroused Mr. Chavez (trained for six years in the Alinsky school of Marxism in Chicago) and his lieutenants to become so “concerned” for these “poor workers” described in Mr. Forbes’ article, and why did a boycott of California grapes become necessary?
The facts are:
(1) Farm workers in California are paid the highest farm wages in the continental United States (according to statistics obtained from U.S. Department of Agriculture records).
(2) Farm workers in California vineyards receive higher wages than the State average.
(3) Farm workers in California are covered by more protective laws than those of any other State.
(4) Housing and working conditions for table grape-workers are among the very best for farm workers anywhere.
(5) The boycott of California grapes became necessary because the workers in vineyards of California were not willing to join Mr. Chavez’ union, since they were well paid and well-treated, and could not possibly benefit by it. Mr. Chavez had worked for the organization of his union (called the United Farm Workers of California) for four years, and had completely failed. He then began to work on the employers, and tried to make them force their employees to join. In this they were not interested since they felt that the employees should have the right for themselves to join or not to join a union. As I understand union rules, the workers organize and the employer is not supposed to interfere in any way (NLRB rules). Strangely, in the case of the grape workers, Chavez is trying to force the employers to in turn force the employees to join a union they do not want. It is easy to see that there is something radically wrong in this situation.
The workers, in turn, especially after being threatened and abused by Chavez’ goon squads, decided to form their own organization, headed by Mr. Jose Mendoza, and called The Agricultural Workers Freedom to Work Association (AWFWA). Mr. Mendoza made the following statement for publication:
We, the farm workers, have never walked out of our jobs. Chavez does not represent us and we are one long way from starving. We are content with the progress we have made in the past without the Chavez organizing committee, which has only caused us anguish during our working hours and at home. We feel it is our constitutional right to be able to work for whom we choose without harassment and intimidation from the church, we, the farm workers, have never walked out of our jobs. Chavez does not represent us and we are one long way from starving. We are content with the progress we have made ill the past without the Chavez organizing committee, which has only caused us anguish during our working hours and at home. We feel it is our constitutional right to be able to work for whom we choose without harassment and intimidation from the church.
Then what is Chavez’ purpose in all this? There is literature available (see close of this contribution) which I would strongly urge anyone interested in this problem to obtain. In it you can find the true aims of Chavez and his cohorts, and they are the same as the purposes of those who foment many of the riots in the colleges. It may be described in the words, revolution and power. And this movement intends not only to destroy the grape growers. The citrus fruit growers have already been notified t hat they are next on the list, then others until all food growers and workers and store outlets will he controlled by one giant organization headed by Marxists and Communists. This reminds one of the biblical warning about the saints of God not being able to buy or sell without the sign of the beast on their foreheads.
After reading Mr. Forbes’ article I discussed it with one of the Christian Reformed ministers in the central U.S.A. and he was rather surprised at what I told him since the usually liberal press has apparently given the Chavez side only. It is, of course, more sensational, even if it is at the expense or the truth. I realized that possibly most people in the U.S. who have read about this have a similar impression. I thank Mr. Forbes therefore for having given me the excuse to write about this in TORCH AND TRUMPET, and thus furnish the other side of the picture.
For the migrant farm worker who follows the crops, the pay for those who work eight hours per day is easily $30–$40 per day ($10 per ton of wine grapes), and more if they are willing to work longer hours. Therefore these people arc far from being underpaid and overworked. If they are underclothed and underfed it must be because they have used their earnings for purposes other than family needs. If they arc undereducated they have not made use of the available educational opportunities in California, often geared to their special needs at considerable cost to the State.
As to “whole families at a time”—as Mr. Forbes mentions—this does not seem unusual to us, nor is it to be condemned as such. If it is, many of the Christian Reformed Church dairy people would have to be condemned, for as long as I have lived in California I have seen the children on the farms go to work with their fathers at the ages of ten years or a little above.
As to the merits of this, I believe many of America’s most outstanding men started at the bottom in their earlier years, and the families T have seen raised thus have been blessed and held together better than families where the young people grew up amidst luxuries without chores to be done.
Very simply, I believe that Mr. Forbes has gone along with propaganda rather than fact, and T do not think this to be helpful for anyone. I am not in any sense opposed to justice or fairness in the treatment of farm workers, be they ever so humble and ever so needy. On the contrary, I want to see them evangelized, helped, and treated decently and fairly. But I think that the story ought to be told accurately and objectively, not as it is told by someone like Mr. Chavez, whose conduct, speeches and purposes are not in the good interest of either employee or employer, not to mention the Cause of Jesus Christ.
GILBERT DEN DULK, M.D. Ripon, California
REFERENCES:
1. The Grapes (Communist Wrath in Delano) by Gary Allen (American Opinion, Belmont, Mass. 02178). 15¢
2. Sour Grapes. The move to control our food supply, by Rex T. Westerfield (same publishers). 15¢
3. Clergy Views of Delano and the Grape Boycott by Allen Grant and Murray Morris, LLB. (Rudell Publ. Co. P.O. Box 7811, Fresno, California 93727.) (Excellent booklet with statements by pastors, priests and rabbis in the involved area.) Price $1.
4. Violence at the Supermarket, avail, able free from the Consumers’ Rights Comm., 1100 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Washington D.C.
5. Fourteenth Report Un-American Activities in California 1967 (From Office of State Senator Hugh M. Burns, California State Legislature, Senate Office, Sacramento, California.) Free.