[2] At its head stood an intense and energetic organizer named Donald Henderson who was a young economics instructor at Columbia University and a member of the Communist party.
[3] Henderson, who was also one of the founders of the People’s Congress, noted the importance this union placed on popularizing the conditions of black and Mexican American workers and organizing them as a way to improve their social and economic situation.
[5] Unable to persuade the AFL to charter an international union of agricultural workers and increasingly drawn to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) industrial union structure, Henderson and representatives from locals throughout the country met in Denver in July 1937 to form UCAPAWA, which promptly received a charter from the CIO.
When the UCAPAWA entered an affiliation the Arkansas-based Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) there was controversy regarding political associations.
Infighting between Communist party leaders and the local Socialists who served as the organization’s principal administrators, as well as personality and ideological conflicts marred the alliance from the start.
both the STFU and UCAPAWA differed over a fundamental issue: Whether agricultural workers could best be served by a protest organization or a trade union.
The UCAPAWA disagreed and argued that agricultural workers could be taught the rudimentary procedures for running the locals and that union members had to support their own organization.
The UCAPAWA distanced themselves further from conventional unions and organizations by representing working classes generally ignored by traditional craft affiliates.
Union officers deliberately enlisted black, Mexican, Asian and female labor organizers in order to launch campaigns aimed at minorities and women.
Left-wing labor activists like Healey were successful because they embraced the Popular Front viewpoint and represented themselves as links to ethnic communities and as advocates of racial equality.
Healey was assisted by a core group of college students and Young Communist League members who worked in the plant during the summer and were actively involved in organizing.
More than half had stipulations concerning paid holidays, union input in setting piece rates, and overtime pay after forty hours per week.
Their primary grievances put forth against the Seligmann Company were a 15% pay cut, deploring plant conditions, and unpaid homework.
"[19] In 1939, UCAPAWA Vice-President Dorothy Ray Healey played an important role in unionizing workers at California Sanitary Canning Company (Cal San) in Los Angeles, who struck in August of the same year.
Union members picketed the cannery, grocery stores that sold Cal San goods, and the houses of the Shapiro brothers, the plant's owners.
Faced with children holding signs bearing slogans such as "I'm underfed because Mama is underpaid," the Shapiro brothers met with negotiators and soon reached a settlement.
[23] A power struggle between the groups erupted soon after the affiliation and culminated with a 1939 protest against the eviction of sharecroppers in Missouri, which was not supported by the national organization.