INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM* S IAST FRONTIER
Henry P. Anderson
I, Introduction
In Februaiy, 19*>9 > the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, comprised
of Pres id on . George Meany, Secretary-Treasurer Viliam Schnitzlcr, and
the heads of 27 National and international unions, met in San Juan,
Puerto Rico. At that meeting, the Executive Council dealt with several
major items of business, including, among other things, the problem of
coping with the groundswell which culminated a few months later in the
Landrum-Griffin Act. As labor meetings go, this one was well-publicized
in the popular press. Very little attention, however, was given an
Executive Council decision which may prove, in the long run, the most
important decision of that San Juan meeting, or. for that matter, any
labor meeting of recent memory.
The AFL-CIO Organizing Department was instructed to form an Agricultural
Workers Organizing Committee — the first industrial organizing committee
since the AFL-CIO merger, and the first in any arm of the American labor
movement since the great drives in auto and steel twenty and more years ago.
The Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) was to be financed from
a soecial fund for "organizing the unorganized” — a fund built up through
an assessment of one penny per month, for six months, on every member of
every AFL-CIO affiliate in the country.
After careful study, AFL-CIO* s Director of Organization, Jack
Livingston , chose a loclle for the drive: the heart of California’s
Central Valley, where the land is fabulously rich, the growing season long,
and hired farm laborers are employed by the hundreds of thousands. As
chief-of-staff for the campaign, Livingston chose Norman Smith, a labor
veteran with many years’ organizational experience in auto, construction,
steel, and other basic industries. Smith selected a small technical staff,
and a group of organizers, mo&t of whom came directly from woik in the
fields and orchards of the area. In June, 193>9, AWOC opened its doors
at the old labor temple on the corner of 1Teber and Grant Streets, "'tockton.
In this article, we shall examine the following questions: Why did
the AFL-CIO create an Agricultural workers Organizing Comm ttee? hat has
AWOC accomplished in its first year and a half? What is AwOC looking forward
to in the seasons ahead v Why do we suggest that this drive is perhaps the
most iiTTOortant development within the American labor movement in recent memory?
II. Why an AWOC?
Although agriculture may be a ”way of life” to some farmers in some
parts of the country, in the Southwest — and increasingly in other areas
as well — it is a business essentially like any other. In California,
