United Farm Workers Office Bombed (1970)

Wed Nov 04, 1970

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On this day in 1970, a United Farm Workers (UFW) office was bombed Salinas Valley, California. The bombing took place during the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm workers strike in U.S. history, which had begun on August 23rd of that year.

The Salad Bowl strike was in part a protest against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters winning legal jurisdiction over farm workers in California (the UFW had previously organized these workers). The Salad Bowl Strike caused the price of lettuce to double practically overnight, and lettuce growers lost $500,000 a day.

During the strike UFW leader César Chávez was arrested and imprisoned. When he was visited by athlete Rafer Johnson and Ethel Kennedy, widow of slain Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson and Kennedy were attacked by an anti-union mob on the steps of the jail and police had to suppress the quarrel.

Although the strike ended on March 26th, 1971 when the Teamsters and UFW signed a new jurisdictional agreement reaffirming the UFW’s right to organize field workers, jurisdictional labor disputes (and associated violence) would continue for years afterward. These tensions led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.