A FARM WORKERS» MANIFESTO
(Manifesto: "A public declaration. .. setting forth intentions and motives."
Webster’s Collggiate Dictionary.)
1. Our objective is the rightful inheritance of the disinherited. The
rightful inheritance of agricultural workers is neither more nor less than
that of everyone else in a democratic society: it includes material
benefits; it includes security; it includes legal rights and guarantees;
it includes the opportunity to participate fullyin political, educational,
religious, cultural, and other social institutions; it includes respect,
and justice, and freedom; it means the opportunity to influence one’s
destiny; it means the opportunity to develop to the utmost one’s possibilities
as a human being.
2. We are wmrki±m?:mtm organizing a farm workers’ union because
ляе
believe
that a union can accomplish these objectives. We do not
Ье44е=те
,any 'other
type of organization,^ can do so**»we baideve- a ny
3. When we say we are "organizing" a union, we mean the word in its
proper sense. The dictionary tells us an organization is a "vital,
systematic, organic whole." To organize is "to arrange in interdependent
parts, each having a special^ function or relation with respect to the
others." Organizing^ union, then, means building meaningful, enduring
sets of relationships between people, pointed toward the more effective
accomplishment of the objectives mentioned above. There can obviously be
no organization, in this sense, unless the members know one another, have
confidence in one another, work together on common problems, dividing the
work to be done along lines of individuals’ particular talarts.
[(.. A farm worker is anyone who works for wages on a farm, whethe^e
operates a truck, a tractor, or other mechanical equipment; irrigates,
sprays, thins, prunes; cultivates; harvests; sorts, grades, washes, packs;
distributes boxes, stitches, loads. In all logic and in all morality,
the jurisdiction of a farm workers’ union should include all these, and
every other operation which is performed on the premises of a farm or
ranch. We have no intention or desire to extend the jurisdiction of
the farm workers’ union off the farm, onto highways, or into cities.
5. The union which we are building will insist upon equal opportunity
for all agricultural workers, regardless of race, culture, language, cn ^
religion, national origin, sex, age, or other irrelevant considerations.
We shall insist upon equal treatment for all such groups from agricultural
employers. And we shall insist upon equal treatment for all such groups
in the internal workings of the union. We shall not consider the union
has succeeded until all types of farm workers are full participants in the
union’s activities.
6. Similarly, the union we are building will show no favoritism toward workers in
ascertain class of
сгорэд
such as those which have been mechanized vs. those
which hatfe not; 6r toward ladder crops vs. row crops. Only for reasons of
overall strategy or limitations of resources will the emphasis of the union
be limited, and then only with the knowledge and consent of the membership.