Obreros Unidos - Cucumber Organizing

Cucumber Organizing

Obreros Unidos organized workers in the cucumber harvest in 1967 organizing the mainly Texas-Mexican or Tejano workers of Libby's foods. They came up with a novel organizing strategy which aimed to organize workers in Texas before the actual harvest season in Wisconsin began. Since many of the labor organizers were themselves migrants or former migrants like Jesus Salas, the union spent many months in South Texas organizing workers so that when they moved for recognition in Wisconsin, they had already built the membership required to call for a vote and representation before the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC). The WERC was the first labor board to recognize the rights of agricultural workers to collectively bargain at the state level in the Mt. Nebo Fur Farm case in October, 1964. Under federal law agricultural workers were not covered by labor law under the National Labor Relations Act, but in Wisconsin they were protected by state law provisions. Such protections were won for farm workers in California under the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act a decade after the right was recognized for Wisconsin's agricultural workers and tested several times by Obreros Unidos.