These are all original buttons and in great condition…I’m selling them for $15 each at the store. They are a little teaser of a dope collection of vintage ephemera that will be slowly trickling into the store.
The Chavez one and the Campesino Power one have the GCIU Union Bug and were probably made in the 80s. The rest have the ‘Berkeley Litho Service’ Union Bug and probably date to the early to mid ’70s.
The ‘Nixon Eats Lettuce’ (my personal favorite) is from a United Farm Workers (UFW) campaign in the early 1970s urging a boycott of lettuce grown on non-union farms. The reference to Nixon is a jab at his close relationship with Jimmy Hoffa (In ‘71 Nixon commuted his 15 year sentence for a ‘64 jury tampering and fraud conviction) and the Teamster Leadership.
From the UFW Website:
“Summer 1970–To keep the UFW out of California lettuce and vegetable fields, most Salinas Valley growers sign “sweetheart” contracts with the Teamsters Union. Some 10,000 Central Coast farm workers respond by walking out on strike. The UFW uses the boycott to convince some large vegetable companies to abandon their Teamster agreements and sign UFW contracts. Chavez calls for a nationwide boycott of non-union lettuce.
Dec. 10-24, 1970–Chavez is jailed in Salinas, Calif. for refusing to obey a court order to stop the boycott against Bud Antle lettuce. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visit Chavez in the Salinas jail.
1971–The UFW moves from Delano to its new headquarters at La Paz in Keene, Calif., southeast of Bakersfield. With table and wine grape contracts, and some agreements covering vegetable workers, UFW membership grows to around 70,000. Meanwhile, the union engages in a number of smaller organizing and boycott drives.
1972–The UFW signs a contract with the Coca Cola Co. covering its Minute Maid citrus workers in Florida. The union defeats a Nixon administration bid to curb the UFW by placing the union under restrictions of federal labor statutes even though farm workers have been excluded from protections of the law since 1935; one million protest letters flood the National Republican Committee. The UFW is chartered as an independent affiliate by the AFL¡©CIO; it becomes the United Farm Workers of America.
May 11-June 4, 1972–Chavez fasts for 25 days in Phoenix over a just-passed Arizona law essentially banning the right of farm workers to strike, boycott or organize. The fast and resulting UFW-sponsored grass roots campaigns transform politics in the heavily Latino state where Chavez was born, leading to the election of Latino governors, including the current chief executive.
Spring-summer 1973–When the UFW’s three-year grape contracts come up for renewal, growers?including the E&J Gallo winery sign sweetheart pacts with the Teamsters without an election or any representation procedure. That sparks a bitter months-long strike by grape workers in California’s Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. Some 3,500 nonviolent strikers are arrested for violating anti-picketing injunctions, many of which are later overturned as unconstitutional, hundreds of strikers are beaten, dozens are shot and two are murdered. In response to the violence, Chavez calls off the strike and begins a second grape boycott. Once again, strikers, union staff and volunteers spread out to cities across North America, organizing popular support for the boycotts of table grapes, lettuce and Gallo wine.
1973-1975–According to a nationwide 1975 Louis Harris poll, 17 million Americans are boycotting grapes. Many are also boycotting lettuce and Gallo wine.”
