Local 11 Joins UFW
for Historic Solidarity March

January/February 2003 IBEW Journal

Volunteers from Local 11, Los Angeles, joined a 10-day United Farm Workers march that ultimately led to a new state law giving farm workers greater leverage in contract negotiations.

The trek traced the steps of UFW founder Cesar Chavez’s historic 1966 march for farm workers’ rights. At first, it appeared that Governor Gray Davis (D-California) would not sign the legislation, said Local 11 organizer Bob Oedy. But the publicity generated by the group, which numbered into the hundreds, convinced Davis to disappoint the powerful California growers and side with the workers. The bill, giving farm workers arbitration rights in negotiations for farm labor contracts, is now law.

"I’ll guarantee this march had something to do with that," Oedy said.

IBEW Local 11, the only building trades union to join the march, walked beside UFW members, children and retirees, eating traditional Mexican fare and sleeping on church floors along the way from Stockton north to the state capital of Sacramento. They marched 15 miles a day in mid-August in temperatures that reached 105 degrees. The San Joaquin valley route led the marchers through the state’s most fertile agricultural lands.

"It was great and I was proud to be part of it," Oedy said.

Local 11 brought along its eye-catching 15-passenger van decorated in stars and stripes. Along the march, the van doubled as a first aid station and carried a nurse. Among the IBEW marchers was retired Local 11 member John Sanderson who was recovering from open-heart surgery.

IBEWCURRENTS

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 11