CAUSA, LA ("The Cause"), a movement to organize Mexican American farm workers, originated in California's San Joaquin Valley in 1962. The movement's founder, César Estrada Chávez, initially brought workers and their families together through community organizing, the Catholic Church, and parades. Increasing support for the movement emboldened its leaders to mount labor strikes, organize boycotts of table grapes and wines in 1966, and establish the United Farm Worker Organizing Committee in 1967 (later the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO), which sought health benefits and better wages and working conditions for its members. Despite opposition from growers, in 1975 the California legislature passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act to allow farm workers the right to collective bargaining.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Griswold del Castillo, Richard, and Richard A. Garcia. César Chávez: A Triumph of Spirit. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Ferriss, Susan, and Ricardo Sandoval. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997.
Donna Alvah
See also United Farm Workers .
