Farmers' and Farm Workers' Movements: Social Protest in American Agriculture (Social movements past & present) - Softcover

Mooney, Patrick H.; Majka, Theo J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805738703 ISBN 13: 9780805738704

Publisher: Twayne Publishers Inc.,U.S., 1994

Synopsis

In this comprehensive overview of the fascinating and rich history of the struggles of farmers and farm workers, Patrick H. Mooney and Theo J. Majka highlight the drama of certain events and the courage and charisma of the individuals who have participated in these movements. The section on farmer movements begins with a look at the violent farmer protests from the colonial period up to the Civil War and then moves on to farmer alliances with labor that were common between 1860 and the farm depression of the 1920s; the institutionalization of the cooperative movement of the early twentieth century; the creation of the Farm Bureau and its consequences for farmers; the cooperatives' initiation of lobbying to combat the power of agribusiness in Washington; the emergence of the National Farmers' Organization as a protest and collective bargaining movement in the 1950s and 1960s; the American Agriculture Movement's campaigns for a "farm strike" and production control in the late 1970s and the 1980s; and the new agrarian social movements emerging from the farm crisis of the 1980s. The section on farm worker movements looks mainly at the agribusiness economy of California, beginning with farm worker mobilization in the depression era and the emergence of such prominent unions as the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union and the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America. The authors extensively examine the United Farm Workers (UFW) activism that began in 1965 under the late Cesar Chavez and culminated in 1975 with the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. The achievements of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in Ohio and Michiganduring the 1980s and early 1990s is also compared with the relative failures of the UFW during that same time period, and the authors pay particular attention to the "control issues" that have been crucial among farm worker demands. Mooney and Majka illustrate key concepts and issue

About this edition

• Publisher: Twayne Publishers Inc.,U.S.
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0805738703
• ISBN 13: 9780805738704
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 294