Module Overview
The Watsonville Canneries Strike 1985-1987
The Watsonville Cannery Strike was led predominately by Mexican and Mexican-American women. They went up against the cannery owners, the powerful agribusiness machine, and their own union which had become entrenched and unresponsive. After battling for 18 months, strikers' rejected an initial poor settlement negotiated by the union, pushing back against larger pay cuts and winning medical benefits for all workers, seniority rights and striker amnesty. But most of all, they gained organizing and leadership skills and a voice in the future of their community.
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 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 strikers participated in a manda y peregrinación -- a Catholic offering and pilgrimage -- marching on their knees from the cannery to St. Patrick's Church.
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 who helped each other on the picket line with child care, housing, food, and other daily needs over the 18 months of the strike. Women in particular emerged as leaders, organizing a Strikers' Committee to represent rank and file workers, fund raising and planning rallies, and pushing back against the union when it did not advocate for them.
The Watsonville Canneries Strike was a rare victory in an era of failed strikes and union busting. Women, immigrants, and rank and file workers took center stage and resisted efforts to undermine or co-opt their strike. While the Watsonville canneries, like many other industries, closed down as manufacturing moved abroad, the strike had a lasting impact on the community. This impact is felt in the strikers themselves and in local politics. Until the strike, though they were a majority, there were no Latinos 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. As striker Margarita Páramo explains "We knew we had won, and we began to feel that we had won more than the strike, ganamos dignidad y un futuro bueno para nuestros hijos*" (Flores, pg. 69).
*We won dignity and a good future for our children.
Learning Outcomes
Through this module, students will be able to:
- Explain the history of the Watsonville Canneries Strike
- Analyze topics using primary source documents, including union leadership, the strikers' committee, support from community members and outside groups, news coverage, and the impact on the city of Watsonville.
- Discuss labor history, activism, and organizing strategies in the Pajaro Valley
- Relate their own personal and community experiences to labor history and community organizing
Overview of Topics & Sources
This module is broken into 7 topics. Each topic includes a set of primary sources, and each primary source includes guiding questions.
Primary Source Analysis Worksheets
These worksheets can be utlized to help students analyze sources.
This module was created created by Cabrillo College Links to an external site. Librarians Michelle Morton and Aloha Sargent and Labor Archives Research Center Links to an external site. Director Tanya Hollis. Primary sources used in this module can be found at San Francisco State University's Labor Archives Research Center Links to an external site. and the Watsonville Public Library's California Agricultural Worker's History Center Links to an external site..
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Union Leadership |
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| Strikers' committee |
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Community Support |
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| Strike Support Committees |
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| Rallies |
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| News Coverage |
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| Final Days |
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| Watsonville After the Strike |
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This module was created created by Cabrillo Librarians Michelle Morton and Aloha Sargent and Labor Archives Research Director Tanya Hollis.
Selected Secondary Sources
Donahoe, Myrna Cherkoss. "The Watsonville Cannery Strike, 1985-1987." 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. University of New Mexico Press, 1987.
Shapiro, Peter. Song of the Stubborn One Thousand: The Watsonville Canning Strike, 1985-87. Haymarket Books, 2016.
Silver, John. "Watsonville on Strike." Films Media Group, 1989. Films On Demand.
Wong, Eddie. íSi Se Puede! Watsonville Canning Strike, 1985-1987. Media Archive, 1987. Unity / La Unidad.
Citations
Ellison, Kurt. [Published photograph of strikers, Watsonville Cannery Strike], circa 1985-1986. Publication unknown. Ellison worked for the Register Pajaronian but I haven't confirmed this is from the RP.
Flores, William V. "Mujeres en huelga: Cultural Citizenship and Gender Empowerment in a Cannery Strike. Download Mujeres en huelga: Cultural Citizenship and Gender Empowerment in a Cannery Strike." Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 1996, vol. 22 no. 1, pg. 57-81.