Control Over the Labor Process

The distinctive legal and political disadvantages imposed on farm workers have been used to isolate agricultural employment as an enclave for immigrant workers. The manipulation of ascribed characteristics has further been used to drive a wedge between groups of workers: citizens and noncitizens, men and women. The efforts of organized labor unions to gain a foothold in agricultural labor markets have suffered

from the ability of employers to stimulate conflict and competition between domestic and foreign workers, as well as between different ethnic groups making up the alien labor force. These kinds of tactics have been cited in numerous other settings as well (Castles and Kosack, 1975; Castells, 1975; Burowoy, 1976; Paige, 1975).

Efforts by organized labor to extend into agriculture have demonstrated the difficulties inherent in overcoming both the political power of agricultural employers and the conflict generated between protected and unprotected labor (Galarza, 1971; McWilliams, 1971; Friedland and Thomas, 1974). While the major labor unions and the AFL-CIO consistently opposed the importation of alien labor, forays into actual labor organization were scattered and largely unsuccessful. Differences in the structure of agricultural and industrial work practices and employment, on the one hand, and differences in legal status of agricultural workers, on the other, acted to diminish the progress and the persistence of union organizing drives. In the case of the AFL, minimal returns on investment led to diminished efforts in organizing. In the case of the Teamsters, a strategy of containment—where the union sought to prohibit the expanded use of alien labor—was developed to protect nonfield workers. As a result, the conditions and earnings associated with agricultural labor remained under the control of employers.

The irony of the most successful of farm worker unions—the United Farm Workers—is that its organization around the common national and cultural heritage and employment situation of farm workers has made it subject to severe whipsawing by employers. The political and social divisions in the membership along the lines of citizenship and gender have blunted the union's ability to challenge the organization of work and has forced it to pursue two restricted and costly strategies. One strategy, the pursuit of political protections through state extension of labor legislation to include farm workers, has limited the union's ability to carry on extensive organizational campaigns. Time and organizational resources that might otherwise be devoted to membership campaigns at the local level have had to be focused on legislative and

electoral battles on a state-by-state basis instead. The other strategy, admittedly a last resort, has focused union efforts to negotiate the highest possible wage settlements for workers, with secondary emphasis on the conditions or organization of work. This strategy, prevalent in the lettuce industry, has demonstrated the implicit notion that many of the workers presently covered will eventually be displaced through mechanization (Thomas and Friedland, 1982).