The farm labor movement in the midwest : social change and adaptation among migrant farmworkers /

Barger and Reza chart the development of FLOC (the Farm Labor Organizing Committee) in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana and analyze this movement to organize migrant farmworkers as a case study in social change. The authors' observations are supplemented by interviews with FLOC members and leaders, managers of processing firms, and vegetable growers. Results from several field surveys of migrant farmworkers are reported, as is a telephone survey of Indiana residents about the farm labor movement. The unique aspect of the FLOC movement is that it targeted its strike-and-boycott efforts not against individual growers, but against multinational giants, which, in turn, put pressure on their suppliers. FLOC has a short history. Starting with a strike against Campbell Soup Company in 1978, it sponsored a boycott of their products beginning in 1979. Contracts were signed with Campbell Soup in 1986-87, Heinz Company in 1987, and Dean Foods in 1991. These contracts guaranteed for the first time improvements in basic working conditions and increased wages for farm workers. They also eliminated sharecropping (a technique used by growers to avoid paying Social Security taxes or conforming to child labor laws). Barger, a cultural anthropologist, and Reza, an organizational psychologist, were also involved in FLOC's development. Recommended. All levels.