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.
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Additional information
Robert C. Dash is a professor of politics at Willamette University, (Salem, Oregon) and an Associate Editor of the journalLatin American Perspectives. He has published in the areas of Latin American politics, culture, and migration. Field work for this article was conducted in 1994 and 1995 with the support of Willamette University Atkinson Research Grants
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Dash, R.C. Mexican labor and Oregon agriculture: The changing terrain of conflict. Agric Hum Values 13, 10–20 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01530520
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01530520