Thirteen states already celebrate the birthday of the late César Chávez, one of the most inspirational union and human rights leaders of 20th century. On April 1st, members of Congress and the union movement renewed their efforts to establish Chávez’s March 31 birthday as a national holiday.
Speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said:
We support this holiday because we want to honor what César Chávez did in his lifetime. And we support this holiday because the legacy of César Chávez will inspire others to soldier on—and there is still so much work left to do.
Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, along with nearly 60 co-sponsors, introduced a bill in Congress (H. Res. 76) to create a National César Chávez Day. In 2000, California was the first state to honor Chávez, who died in 1993, with a holiday, and Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin also have established Chávez holidays. (You can sign and download a petition to create a national holiday honoring Chávez.)
The Capitol Hill press conference follows the March 31 launch in Los Angeles of a campaign, spearheaded by the César Chávez National Holiday Coalition, to win a national holiday honoring the founder and former president of the United Farm Workers (UFW). The coalition’s co-chair and music legend Carlos Santana says:
César Chávez was a national treasure and he deserves a national holiday. As a labor activist and a leader of the United Farm Workers, his voice for migrant farm workers and his tireless leadership helped focus national attention on their horrible working conditions which ultimately led to improvements. He is an icon for everyone and someone who we should honor with a national holiday.
Holt Baker says Chavez’s life and work won the support of millions to his cause for the right of farm workers to join a union and negotiate a contract without intimidation from employers. Today, she says, too many working people in this country don’t have the freedom to join unions and bargain collectively because the system is broken. So we need to remember and honor César Chávez while we continue the battle to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
She also pointed out the battles farm workers still face today for justice—the mostly immigrant workers who pick tomatoes for the fast-food industry who are still being treated like slaves. And the Farm Labor Organizing Committee is uniting North Carolina farm workers who are suffering and dying from dehydration and nicotine exposure in the tobacco fields of R.J. Reynolds.
In January, federal officials in south Florida arrested Antonia Zuniga Vargas on a 17-count indictment, charging her with conspiring to make money off workers from Mexico and Guatemala, forging documents and committing identity theft. Vargas, along with five other co-defendants, is connected to a business operation in Immokalee, Fla., allegedly created to hold workers in involuntary servitude and peonage.
Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy told the Fort Myers News-Press Vargas and the others are charged with:
…slavery, plain and simple. Some of the folks have been there for years. It is the hope to send back money to their families, and they hang on to that hope. It’s just a situation that’s difficult to get out of.
Says Holt Baker:
A national holiday honoring César Chávez will bolster all of these struggles by reminding working people of what is possible through the strength of solidarity. [It] would be the first reminder to everyone in America of the many contributions made by Latinos and by labor leaders. And a holiday honoring César Chávez will remind everyone in America from board room to tobacco field that farm workers, and all workers, have dignity, rights, and when they join together (they have) power.
Chávez’s union, the UFW, also launched a comprehensive online resource center on Chávez and his fights for workers’ rights, civil rights, environmental justice, equality for all, peace, non-violence, children and women’s rights. Click here and take a look. To learn more about Chavez’s life and accomplishments click here, here and here.