United Farm Workers

United Farm Workers (UFW), U.S. labor union founded in 1962 as the National Farm Workers Association by the labor leaders and activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. It seeks to empower migrant farmworkers and to improve their wages and working conditions. The union also works to promote nonviolence and to educate members on political and social issues.

In 1965 the union gained prominence when it sponsored a strike by California grape pickers and a nationwide boycott of California grapes. The strike and boycott lasted until 1970, when most of the grape growers signed union contracts granting the farmworkers a higher minimum wage and health insurance benefits. Subsequent battles between the union and lettuce growers and other big farming businesses generally ended with the signing of collective bargaining agreements.

Meanwhile, the union merged (1966) with the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and it was re-formed under its current name in 1971. In 2006 the UFW disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and joined the labor federation Change to Win.

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On March 17, 2026, the union announced that it was canceling its participation in the annual celebration of Chavez’s birthday on March 31, known as Cesar Chavez Day, in response to “serious” and “shockingly profound” allegations of sexual abuse made against Chavez. On March 18 the The New York Times, citing its own investigation of allegations against Chavez, reported that he had sexually abused two underage girls in the 1970s, sexually assaulted Dolores Huerta, and sexually harassed other women in his movement.