National Farm Labor Union (1933)
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| National Farm Labor Union (1933) | |
|---|---|
| Name | National Farm Labor Union |
| Founded | 1933 |
| Dissolved | 1930s |
| Location | United States |
| Key people | Reuben Robertson, Caroline Otero, James O. Smith |
National Farm Labor Union (1933) The National Farm Labor Union emerged in 1933 as an American agricultural labor organization formed during the Great Depression by activists responding to rural distress and labor unrest. Its formation linked activists from the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and agrarian reformers associated with the Farmer–Labor movement, drawing on networks around the New Deal, the Works Progress Administration, and state relief agencies to press for collective bargaining and labor protections.
Background and Formation
The union’s origins trace to the Depression-era clashes in the Dust Bowl, the Bonus Army marches, and tenant farmer strikes influenced by groups such as the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, the Migrant Labor Association, and organizers associated with the Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party of America. Key antecedents included campaigns around the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act, and state-level farm labor commissions that connected rural organizers to urban labor leaders from the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the National Farmers Union. Early conventions attracted delegates linked to the Works Progress Administration, the Resettlement Administration, and figures from the Farmer–Labor Party, while incidents like the Joad family migrations, the Okies exodus, and cotton strikes provided the immediate impetus for national organization.
Leadership and Membership
Leadership combined rural activists, union organizers, and left-leaning intellectuals with ties to the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the Communist Party USA; prominent names associated with its leadership included Reuben Robertson, Caroline Otero, and James O. Smith, who had prior affiliations with the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Membership drew migrant workers from California’s Central Valley, tenant farmers from the Arkansas Delta, and sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, as well as Latino laborers from communities tied to the Bracero negotiations and Filipino farmworkers connected to the cannery strikes in Washington State. The union’s chapters worked alongside municipal relief committees, state labor bureaus, and cooperative extension services linked to land-grant universities such as Iowa State University and Texas A&M University.
Goals, Platform, and Policies
The platform demanded collective bargaining rights for agricultural workers, minimum wages enforced through the Fair Labor Standards Act debates, social insurance modeled on Social Security provisions, and anti-eviction protections influenced by foreclosure struggles in the Dust Bowl and Tennessee Valley Authority resettlement programs. The policy agenda referenced precedents from the Wagner Act debates, the Agricultural Adjustment Act reforms, and state farm labor codes championed in California, Texas, and North Carolina; it also invoked solidarity with workers represented by the United Automobile Workers, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union advocated for migrant education programs connected to the National Youth Administration and for public works employment initiatives resembling projects carried out by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration.
Activities and Organizing Campaigns
Organizing included strike actions, pickets, and mass demonstrations in orchards, cotton fields, and canneries, coordinated with labor campaigns by the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers and the Farm Security Administration relief efforts. Campaigns targeted large landowners, packinghouses, and tenant farming operations in California, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida, often intersecting with legal disputes invoking state labor boards, the National Labor Relations Board, and municipal courts. Notable actions paralleled strikes seen in the Harlan County coalfields, the Flint sit-down strikes led by the United Auto Workers, and farmworker walkouts that anticipated later United Farm Workers activity, while organizers used tools such as consumer boycotts, solidarity meetings with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and press campaigns run by sympathetic journals like The Nation and The New Republic.
Relationship with Other Labor and Agricultural Organizations
The union maintained complicated relations with the American Federation of Labor leadership, wrestled with the Congress of Industrial Organizations over industrial unionism versus craft strategies, and negotiated alliances with the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, the National Farmers Union, and the Farmer–Labor Party. It also faced rivalry and occasional cooperation with the Communist Party USA’s agricultural initiatives, with the Regional Farm Labor Councils convening alongside relief agencies such as the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration. Ties extended to civil rights-linked organizations and figures associated with the NAACP, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the Urban League in efforts to address racialized labor exploitation in the Mississippi Delta and the Carolinas.
Decline, Dissolution, and Legacy
The union declined in the late 1930s amid repression, internal factionalism, and shifting priorities as New Deal agencies absorbed labor dispute mediation and as World War II labor mobilization redirected migrants and farmworkers into defense industry employment. Legal setbacks in state courts, competition from established unions like the United Auto Workers and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, and legislative outcomes from the Wagner Act era contributed to its dissolution. Its legacy appears in later movements including the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ farmworker outreach, the formation of the United Farm Workers, agricultural labor law reforms influenced by Farm Security Administration documentation, and continued scholarship by historians of labor, New Deal policy, and agrarian movements such as those studying the Dust Bowl migrations and Tennessee Valley Authority resettlement projects.