Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC)

Black and white photograph of seven Filipino American men wearing hats, jackets, and slacks pose in front of a building housing offices of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in Santa Cruz, California.

Initially chartered and funded by the powerful AFL-CIO, AWOC’s administration was composed of trade union veterans and farm worker organizers. Most rank-and-file members, like those pictured here at AWOC headquarters in Santa Cruz, were Filipino migrant farm workers who formed a militant base and fought for union recognition and higher wages, helping AWOC to gain twelve thousand new members in its first two years. The AFL-CIO withdrew its support from AWOC in 1961. AWOC would merge with the National Farm Workers Association in 1966 to form the United Farm Workers.

Filipino American Members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Commitee (AWOC) in Front of AWOC Headquarters in Santa Cruz, Calif. Links to an external site., Henry Pope Anderson Papers, larc.ms.0422, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.