Module Overview
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The Watsonville Canneries Strike 1985-1987
The Watsonville Cannery Strike was led predominately by Mexican and Mexican-American women, including many single mothers. They went up against the cannery owners, the powerful agribusiness machine, and their own union which had become entrenched and unresponsive.
Watsonville, in the heart of the agricultural Pajaro Valley, was once known as the "frozen food capital of the world" with a large number of canneries processing the majority of frozen food products sold in the United States. In September 1985, nearly half of the town's 4,000 cannery workers went out on a strike that lasted 18 months to protest reductions in wages and benefits at the Watsonville Canning and Shaw Frozen Food Companies.
Over the course of the strike, not one of the 1,000 Watsonville Canning strikers returned to work. They convinced previous employees to not cross the picket lines, which forced the companies to bus in scab labor from outlying areas, a tactic that failed. Workers staged a hunger strike, and some of the devout Catholic strikers participated in a manda y peregrinación, or offering and pilgrimage.
This steadfast determination and worker solidarity was key to the strikers' ultimate victory, but community solidarity also played a large role. The frozen food workers all lived and worked in the local community and went to the same churches. Their children went to the same schools. Large numbers of strikers were members of the same extended families. They were comadres and helped each other with child care on the picket line when some of the women found other jobs.
After an initial poor settlement and a fight within the union that represented them, they were able to push back against a larger pay cut, and won medical benefits for all workers, seniority rights and striker amnesty. But most of all, they gained organizing and leadership skills. The strike attracted national attention, but it also changed economic, political, and social relations in the union and the wider community. Challenges to the entrenched Teamsters Local 912 by Teamsters for a Democratic Union and the Strike Committee representing rank and file workers pushed for more democracy and representation. The union's leadership was ousted and its first Latino Secretary-Treasurer was voted in.
Until the strike, though they were a majority, Latinos were not represented in city government. The strike coincided with other challenges to the existing power structure in Watsonville, including a congressional task force on abuses by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and a federal court case that overturned the at-large electoral system that shut Latinos out of city government. These efforts led to the first Latinos being elected to the Watsonville City Council and Mayor's Office.
Learning Outcomes
Through this module, students will be able to:
- Explain the history of the Watsonville Canneries Strike
- Analyze primary source documents, including photographs, flyers, correspondence, interviews, radio, songs, and newsletters
- Discuss labor history, activism, and organizing strategies in the Pajaro Valley
- Relate their own personal and community experiences to labor history and community activism
Overview of Topics and Sources
This module is broken down into 6 topics. Each topic includes sets of paired primary sources focused on a single theme. Each primary source includes some guiding questions.
Topics and Source Sets
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Photographs |
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| Flyers |
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Correspondence |
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| Interviews | |
| Radio | |
| Songs | |
| Newsletters |
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Selected Secondary Sources
Donahoe, Myrna Cherkoss. "The Watsonville Cannery Strike, 1985-1987 Links to an external site.." The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History. Aaron Brenner, editor. Routledge, 2009, pp. 444-448. eBook Collection.
Flores, William V. "Mujeres en Huelga: Cultural Citizenshipo and Gender Empowerment in a Cannery Strike Download Mujeres en Huelga: Cultural Citizenshipo and Gender Empowerment in a Cannery Strike." William Vincent Flores and Rina Benmayor eds. Latino Cultural Citizenship : Claiming Identity, Space, and Rights. Beacon Press, 1997.
Ruíz, Vicki. Cannery Women, Cannery Lives : Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 Links to an external site.. University of New Mexico Press, 1987.
Shapiro, Peter. Song of the Stubborn One Thousand: The Watsonville Canning Strike, 1985-87 Links to an external site.. Haymarket Books, 2016.
Silver, John. "Watsonville on Strike. Links to an external site." Films Media Group, 1989. Films On Demand.
Wong, Eddie. íSi Se Puede! Watsonville Canning Strike, 1985-1987 Links to an external site.. Media Archive, Unity / La Unidad.
Text adapted from "Celebrating Latinx/a/o Labor History for Latinx Hispanic Heritage Month Links to an external site.." Labor Archives News, Labor Archives & Research Center at San Francisco State University, 14 Oct. 2021.