United Farm Workers

United Farm Workers (UFW), U.S. labour union founded in 1962 as the National Farm Workers Association by the labour leaders and activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. It seeks to empower migrant farmworkers and to improve their wages and working conditions. The union also works to promote nonviolence and to educate members on political and social issues.

In 1965 the union gained prominence when it sponsored a strike by California grape pickers and a nationwide boycott of California grapes. The strike and boycott lasted until 1970, when most of the grape growers signed union contracts granting the farmworkers a higher minimum wage and health insurance benefits. Subsequent battles between the union and lettuce growers and other big farming businesses generally ended with the signing of collective bargaining agreements.

Meanwhile, the union merged (1966) with the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and it was re-formed under its current name in 1971. In 2006 the UFW disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and joined the labour federation Change to Win.