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The nation’s oldest and most influential farmworkers union, already embroiled in a legal dispute with the Trump administration, is now grappling with how to respond to the uproar over sexual abuse allegations against famed labor leader Cesar Chavez. <\/p>\n
Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, said the union wanted to support victims who came forward to disclose that Ch\u00e1vez had sexually abused them decades ago.<\/p>\n
“I want to make sure that we honor the courage of the women who came forward to share these difficult stories,” Romero said in an interview. \u201cI want to make sure we respect them and give them a chance to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
One Investigation<\/u><\/a> The New York Times found that union co-founder Ch\u00e1vez had sexually abused two girls, and fellow union leader Dolores Huerta said he had raped her in the 1960s.<\/p>\n These allegations shocked farmers across the country, with many beginning to regard him as a hero.<\/p>\n At a rally in support of the UFW in Fresno on Wednesday, Carolina Sanchez, a farmworker from Delano, said she did not want to believe the allegations.<\/p>\n “We’re in shock,” Sanchez said.<\/p>\n Romero, who began working with the union several years after Ch\u00e1vez’s death in 1993, said he first learned of details of the allegations in a New York Times article. She said she had never met the victims who said they were abused as girls in the 1970s.<\/p>\n “Any abuse of a woman or a child, anything like that, is inexcusable,” Romero said. “We don’t justify it. We don’t accept it. That’s not who we are.”<\/p>\n UFW said in a written statement<\/u> The “troubling allegations” against Ch\u00e1vez are “inconsistent with the values \u200b\u200bof our organization.” The union said it “has received no direct reports, and we have no direct knowledge of these allegations.”<\/p>\n Romero said the organization is reaching out to groups with expertise in helping victims of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n “We want to support the victims,” \u200b\u200bhe said. “I want them to have someone who understands the trauma of victims,” \u200b\u200band who will be available to provide counseling and emotional support. <\/p>\n \u201cThey were very courageous in speaking out,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n The UFW’s predecessor, the National Farm Workers Association, was founded in 1962 in the city of Delano by Ch\u00e1vez, Huerta and other workers. In the following years, they built a thriving movement fighting for farm workers’ rights, employing marches, fasting, and other nonviolent protest actions.<\/p>\n The organization has changed over the years but continues to campaign for better working conditions and pay for the country’s agricultural workers.<\/p>\n Romero spoke by phone Wednesday after attending a Fresno court hearing on a wage case in which the United Farm Workers and the UFW Foundation are fighting a new Trump administration rule that makes it cheaper for farmers to hire foreign workers by lowering their wages.<\/p>\n But rally outside the court<\/u>Farmworkers waved red UFW flags and held signs such as “Protect My Wages”.<\/p>\n Some people said they were skeptical of the allegations or did not know who to believe. Others said they were concerned that the scandal could hinder their efforts to secure fair wages and better working conditions.<\/p>\n Romero said that like many Americans, he learned about Ch\u00e1vez from books and historical accounts.<\/p>\n There are revelations about the Chicano civil rights icon. sparking call<\/u> To remove Ch\u00e1vez’s name from streets, schools, parks and Cesar Ch\u00e1vez Day on March 31.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone in every city and every school is going to make a decision,\u201d Romero said.<\/p>\n He said, “The man named Cesar Chavez did something terrible, something despicable, something we cannot justify.” “But on the other hand, organizer Cesar Ch\u00e1vez brought together thousands of people who dedicated years of their lives to protecting and improving the lives of agricultural workers. And we will not be able to erase history.”<\/p>\n Romero said, “So we’re not going to erase history, and at the same time, now that these abuses are coming to light, it’s going to be part of history, and people are going to have to decide individually how they view Caesar.” \u201cIt will be their own conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n in one Interview<\/a> With Latino USA, Huerta spoke about farmworkers’ accomplishments and their basic human needs, including bathrooms, drinking water and rest areas.<\/p>\n Huerta said, “When people say why didn’t you leave, why didn’t you tell people, well, this is the reason. Because I felt it would hurt the movement for me to come out and say what happened. That’s the only reason I can say,” Huerta said.<\/p>\n “I can see all the accomplishments, the leadership that has come out of the movement, the millions of farm workers that have been helped,” Huerta said. “And it was my personal pain, it was my personal problem, and I think it was worth it. Because it was a cross worth bearing for me.”<\/p>\n Since the revelations came to light, many organizations and people have reached out to support the work the union is doing, Romero said.<\/p>\n In 2023, the union successfully pushed California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign “card-check” legislation that makes it easier for farmworkers to unionize.<\/p>\n In November, the United Farm Workers, the UFW Foundation and 18 farmworkers filed their own lawsuit seeking to overturn the new Labor Department rule, which they argue will illegally “cut” and depress wages.<\/p>\n In the lawsuit, the union says the rule \u2014 which cuts H-2A workers’ wages by $5 to $7 an hour \u2014 is “unlawful” and “will depress the wages of American workers” who are in similar jobs, often on the same contracts, as those with visas.<\/p>\n Labor Department has estimated<\/a> This rule, which took effect on October 2, will protect employers $2.46 billion annually<\/a>. The union argued in the lawsuit that this is a “transfer of wealth from workers to their employers.”<\/p>\n In 2020, the Trump administration attempted to impose a similar rule, but the UFW and the UFW Foundation successfully sued to stop it.<\/p>\n “This is a $2.4 billion cut in farmworkers’ wages,” UFW Secretary Treasurer Armando Allenes said at the Fresno Courthouse rally. \u201cAnd that’s what we’re going to continue to focus on, because there’s still a lot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Plaintiffs in the current federal lawsuit include farm workers from Michigan, Georgia, California, Washington, Texas and Missouri.<\/p>\n These include 23-year-old US citizen Isabel Panfilo, who harvests strawberries in Ventura County. Last year, she worked for a strawberry grower with H-2A workers and earned about $19.35 an hour, according to the UFW. When she returned last month, with the new H-2A rates taking effect, she was only offered the state’s minimum wage of $16.90 an hour.<\/p>\n Romero said after the court hearing that he was “very hopeful” that the union would prevail.<\/p>\n The way forward for the United Farm Workers, he said, is to continue \u201ctalking about the challenges facing farmworkers right now.\u201d<\/p>\n “Under the administration, they are being targeted as criminals, being deported because of the color of their skin or the work they do,” Romero said. “That’s what people who have reached out to me are focused on. … The work that’s being done right now is vitally important to the safety of the people who still put food on the table.”<\/p>\n Times staff writer Melissa Gomez contributed to this report. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The nation’s oldest and most influential farmworkers union, already embroiled in a legal dispute with the Trump administration, is now grappling with how to respond to the uproar over sexual abuse allegations against famed labor leader Cesar Chavez. Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, said the union wanted to support victims who came<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[71,5007,362,2678,1712,2689,2205,4581],"class_list":["post-10844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bible-verse","tag-abuse","tag-farm","tag-leader","tag-support","tag-union","tag-united","tag-victims","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10846,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions\/10846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}