The Crusades of Cesar Chavez (75 page)

Chapter 38

Selling the Brand

A company can make a social contribution only if it is highly profitable.

At the end of the 1980s, Cesar Chavez asked a familiar question: what is our business? This time the query was largely rhetorical. There were no deep thinkers like Jim Drake around to draft passionate responses, and no soul-searching discussions about the merits of putting resources into organizing versus negotiating. Chavez answered himself with one word:  “entrepreneurial.”

“The purpose of a business: to create a customer,” he wrote in longhand notes
¹
from a meeting to form yet another subsidiary, the Farm Workers Corporation. “A company can make a social contribution only if it is highly profitable.”

Much of Chavez’s attention was directed to raising money through commercial activities along with the union’s more traditional routes. He explored radio and the increasingly popular market of cable television. He dabbled in real estate investments. He modeled experiments after his success in politics, pitching to the growing community of Latino professionals. The UFW sold its brand on T-shirts and mugs, at wine-and-cheese parties, and on scores of college campuses across the country. Cesar Chavez had become a marketable commodity.

His entrepreneurial ventures offered outlets for Chavez’s curiosity. The projects also compensated for a precipitous decline in dues. From a high of $2.99 million in 1982, dues had fallen
²
to $1 million just three years later. Contracts vanished, and those that remained covered fewer workers. Companies went out of business, stalled on renegotiations, or found loopholes to move employees out of the bargaining unit. At some ranches, workers voted to decertify the UFW. Sun Harvest, the giant vegetable grower, had shut down at the end of the 1983 season; officials said the company never recovered from losses suffered during the 1979 strike.

Three years after Gov. George Deukmejian took office in January 1983, the number of jobs covered by UFW contracts
³
had dropped from thirty thousand to fifteen thousand. Over the next six months, the union lost fifteen more contracts,
⁴
leaving about seventy-five. Chavez railed against Deukmejian for destroying the ALRB and painted the union as a victim of an alliance between Republicans and growers. His former counsel, Jerry Cohen, saw things differently.

Cohen acknowledged that the Deukmejian administration had gutted the board that administered the best labor law in the country. But the attorney held Chavez responsible for his failure to continue organizing. The union achieved some of its greatest victories in the era of hostile politicians such as Nixon and Reagan, Cohen pointed out in an op-ed piece
⁵
in the
Los Angeles Times
. “Junk mail doesn’t organize people; people organize people,” Cohen wrote. “Unions that do not organize, die.”

Chavez tried to expand the membership
⁶
outside the fields. The UFW created categories of associate membership in a project he dubbed “Crunch Bird.” Anyone could join the “Community Union” for $5 a month and receive discounts at drugstores, travel deals, and real estate advice. The union targeted former farmworkers and consumers with the goal of signing up five thousand. A broader definition of membership, Chavez told farmworkers, would “open the doors of your union to everyone.”

More members were badly needed to increase the pool of clients for struggling services, such as his beloved credit union. At the end of 1987, the credit union had only 1,063 members
⁷
out of a potential of 3,500 (probably a more accurate figure of the UFW’s membership than the higher numbers the union reported). Since the bank opened, it had handed out almost six thousand loans worth more than $7.7 million.

The print shop built on its political success by spinning off a commercial venture called El Taller Grafico Specialty Advertising Corporation (ETG), with Chavez as chair and Huerta as vice chair. ETG marketed UFW merchandise to the public and also sold T-shirts and specialty items for labor unions to distribute at conventions, a variation on Synanon’s old distribution network. “When you order promotional items through us, it’s a victory for all the unions,” said a magazine ad for ETG that featured an Olympic gold medal emblazoned with the UFW eagle. By 1988, sales topped half a million
⁸
dollars. ETG added children’s clothes, polo shirts, jewelry, buttons, and posters.

Chavez’s most ambitious commercial venture took him far from the fields: he became a housing developer. The union’s foray into housing grew out of a partnership with a Fresno businessman named Celestino Aguilar, who had approached Chavez in the early 1980s with a proposal. As a real estate appraiser, Aguilar heard about foreclosures in advance. If the union put up money to buy houses, Aguilar would oversee renovations and flip the house at substantial profit. He would take a commission, and he promised the union a return of 25 to 50 percent
⁹
on its investment.

The partnership flourished. They moved from foreclosures to high-end custom-built homes and subsidized apartment complexes. Aguilar led the UFW executive board on tours of properties in Fresno. At the 1986 UFW convention, Chavez introduced the Fresno appraiser
¹⁰
as a hero who had made a lot of money but never forgot his roots.

Homelessness had become a problem in the national spotlight, and the federal government allocated more funds for construction and rent subsidies for low-income housing. Aguilar and the UFW took advantage. Chavez shifted the focus
¹¹
of the National Farmworkers Service Center—his original entrepreneurial venture and “problem clinic”—to housing. In 1987, the real estate portfolio
¹²
included 48 low-income apartments in Fresno and 81 apartments in Parlier, with 70 single-family homes and 226 apartments on the drawing board. Chavez and Aguilar formed American Liberty Investments, which helped shield the UFW from public exposure. To service the new apartments, Chavez and Aguilar formed Ideal Minimart Corporation, which built two strip malls and operated a check-cashing store. By 1987, Richard Chavez’s company, Bonita Construction,
¹³
had been hired for some of the work.

When the
Fresno Bee
reported that almost none of the UFW housing projects were built by union contractors, the revelation outraged the building trade unions. Construction unions had contributed thousands of dollars in the years when the UFW had survived on the generosity of organized labor. Dozens of union plumbers, bricklayers, and construction workers had volunteered time to help build projects like Forty Acres. Now the UFW, once the inspiration for a resurgent labor movement, built commercial housing with nonunion labor.

“The 6,800 members of the California State Conference of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsman have for years supported your union, as brothers should,” the group’s vice president wrote Chavez. “I am asking that you offer an explanation to my members.
¹⁴
I believe they deserve one.”

Chavez attacked growers
¹⁵
for trying to discredit the UFW and the
Fresno Bee
for slanted coverage. He claimed the Service Center was “a completely separate and independent organization” from the UFW. The newspaper, he said, had written about the issue because the UFW supported the Newspaper Guild in a dispute.

Labor unions had long been wary of Chavez, and the UFW had earned a reputation for always having its hand out and doing little to help others. But outside the labor movement, the housing controversy did little to dull Chavez’s luster. The union continued to market its most valuable asset—Cesar Chavez. He found particularly receptive audiences on college campuses across the country.

“As president of the United Farm Workers, Chavez has led a long struggle against injustice and unsafe food for over 30 years,” read a “Dear Friend” letter
¹⁶
from Arturo Rodriguez, sent to college students along with a “checklist for a successful UFW speaking event.” Rodriguez had taken on more responsibilities since joining the executive board in 1981 and functioned increasingly as his father-in-law’s chief aide. The letters ticked off some of Chavez’s recent honors, including a National Hispanic Hero Award from the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Conference and a standing ovation from two thousand students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The union asked for a $5,000 honorarium for each appearance and offered suggestions on student and faculty sources to approach for contributions.

In 1990, Chavez spoke at sixty-four events,
¹⁷
earning an average of $3,800 per appearance. He talked mainly to students, plus a mix of labor groups and special fund-raisers organized by longtime supporters. In Amherst, Massachusetts, Chavez presided over a chili cook-off festival coupled with a UFW fund-raiser. Closer to home, Chavez wrote a “wine and cheese marketing plan” that targeted VIPs from labor, religious groups, academia, and community organizations. He calculated the union could raise $480,000 in five months by holding 240 fund-raisers, though they never achieved close to that number.

In 1991, the union adopted a marketing plan
¹⁸
to increase revenue as Chavez embarked on a “Public Action Speaking Tour.” The plan calculated a “strategic marketing mix” and targeted the largest and most prestigious schools. The union appealed to the desire of colleges for diverse speakers and minorities. The goal was to raise $1.2 million, plus $60,000 by selling items produced by ETG.

Volunteers who hosted and facilitated Chavez’s visits received detailed checklists
¹⁹
with directions on how to set up the podium, how many cars to have available to shuttle Chavez between appearances, and what foods to have on hand for his macrobiotic diet: miso, tamari, tofu, garbanzo beans, adzuki beans, lentils, brown rice, buckwheat noodles, burdock, carrots, rutabaga, kale, collard greens, radishes, shallots, and parsnips. Two recipes for miso soup were also included in the packet, along with a reminder not to use salt in cooked food.

In his standard speech, Chavez talked about the problems of farmworkers, the dangers of pesticides, and the nefarious alliance between Republicans and the agriculture industry. He also spoke more broadly about social ills and his disillusionment with the political system. Government would never address problems of poverty, racism, or sexism, he said in an address at Harvard University. Even good candidates become corrupted by lobbyists. He had soured on the idea that voter registration was the key to power, because the votes of the poor did not count. “The more you own,
²⁰
the more your vote counts.”

Only action like boycotts and marches would achieve social change, he told students. “If you take public action, you don’t need 51 percent to win, and the polls never close,
²¹
and you can vote more than once.”

He was relaxed with student audiences, the master teacher in a new setting—mentoring in the halls of privilege rather than the fields of poverty. The nation’s best and brightest called him a hero and role model, and Chavez graciously accepted their earnest accolades. He smiled and patiently answered questions. What would you do differently if you were starting out all over? “I’d use computers.” How can we address the really big problems, like nuclear disarmament? “Stop paying taxes.” Did he admire any politicians? “My friend Jerry Brown.”

Students gave him standing ovations, spoke of their admiration for his dedication, and promised not to buy grapes. He said the question he was asked most often was how he stayed with the cause. “Very simple. Just stay with it. I have nothing else to do.
²²
Nothing else to do. I don’t own a house, and I don’t own a car. I don’t have a bank account. I have nothing. But I have ideas, and I love to raise hell.”

In 1988, the farm worker movement had grown to include eighteen nonprofit and commercial entities,
²³
in addition to the UFW. The entities grew more financially intertwined. The Service Center paid the Education and Legal Defense Fund to provide social services at the field offices. The UFW paid La Union de Pueblo Entero to monitor grievance boards set up under contracts. The UFW, pension fund, and RFK plan paid rent to the Service Center. The other entities paid the union for computer services and printing. The Service Center bought $100,000 worth of stock in ETG, which paid 10.5 percent in royalties on sales to the UFW.

The older entities that still delivered services to farmworkers limped along. Health care and pension plans, ambitious and once-revolutionary ideas, suffered with few participants. By 1989, the RFK plan covered only between two thousand and four thousand workers per month, depending on the season. In 1983, Chavez had made a round of appearances to hand out the first pension checks.
²⁴
“At last, farm worker dignity is being recognized,” he said in Oxnard. “No longer are they being put in the junk pile and forgotten.” But with fewer contracts, the number of workers who could qualify dropped. The pension plan struggled to locate eligible beneficiaries, inching up from 690 retirees in 1989 to about 1,000 by 1992.

The fate of the Martin Luther King Jr. trust fund illustrated the trajectory of Chavez’s movement over less than two decades. When he negotiated the first table grape contract with Lionel Steinberg in the spring of 1970, Chavez wanted to start an economic development fund. Steinberg’s attorney suggested a trust fund jointly administered by appointees of the union and the growers. The trust fund, originally called the Farm Worker Fund, began with a 2¢-per-hour contribution for each worker at Steinberg’s Coachella vineyard. In later contracts, the company contribution increased to 5¢ an hour.