Boycott Lettuce Protest Button

Some of the most effective nationwide consumer boycotts and strikes, often lasting for years, were against big fruit and vegetable growers and bulk wine producers.

The struggle to balance fair wages and workers rights while maintaining cheap labor and sustaining farms has been a major issue in the history of agriculture and Mexican American civil rights. The National Farm Labor Union (later the National Agricultural Workers Union), the AFL-CIO, and the United Farm Workers used boycotts, strikes, and stoppages as a way to receive national attention for workers rights and working conditions. In the United States Southwest, agricultural labor was overwhelmingly Mexican and Mexican American. Issues of legal status, workers rights, and displacement of domestic workers are issues unions with predominantly Mexican participation have been struggling with since the 1920’s.