Abstract

This article examines the efforts by the Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United union to organize Mexican migrant farmworkers in the Willamette Valley. It focuses on the union's 1995 organizing campaign of strawberry pickerśs, the largest campaign in the history of Pacific Northwest agriculture. To provide context for the union's efforts, the article develops the historical role and changing nature of Oregon agriculture, sketches the politics of agriculture in the state, and describes the industry's labor system. The article concludes that significant gains for strawberry pickers were made during the 1995 campaign; the long-term consolidation of those gains remains to be demonstrated