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Show alternatives... ! Editor's Note: Mr. Wilson's essay is the sixth in a series of feature ! articles run weekly in the Daily Utah Chronicle. The S ! expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily j supported by either the Chronicle or the "Alternatives- Committee. $25 cash awards are given to members of the community whose submitted "alternative" is chosen for : publication. Entries should deal with some specific problem of local or national significance and should be addressed tr. Feature Editor, Daily Utah Chronicle. ""tressed to j five member! o! thP RS W and one of the a.,,, would ZtVZ WWOC !10ce one of Sra to UFWOC picket line to cut lettuce. He was doing it for "penance" he said. Farm workers do this penance every day, yet why should they have to do penance for being born a migrant. If all men are created equal, as the Declaration of Independence says, then why are migrants treated like animals? Since our tax money is being used in an attempt to break the lettuce strike, it is important that individuals do all that they can to support the lettuce boycott. Jim Drake, an assistant to Cesar Chavez, explains, "A lot can be done on a concrete level. Ask your grocer about his lettuce. If the carton doesn't bear the UFWOC eagle label, explain to him what is at stake-(the lives of migrants and BY WILLIAM WILSON ' Special to the Chronicle "Why Vietnam When There Is A Salinas?" asked ask-ed the headline of a farm ! worker's paper. The an- i swer which seems to ! come from the United j States Department of De fense is, "Why Salinas when there is Vietnam?" Again the Pentagon has assumed the role of strikebreaker in the United Unit-ed Farm Worker's Organi-zing Organi-zing Committee's (UFWOC) strike and boy- cott of lettuce. The Pen tagon, one should recall, assumed the same role in the UFWOC's strike and boycott of grapes. During the grape boycott boy-cott the Pentagon increased in-creased its buying of California Cali-fornia table grapes by 350 percent. However, since the grape strike was sucessful, certain lettuce growers signed with the ; UFWOC, so rather than I increase the buying of j lettuce the Defense De- I partment has simply been very selective in the growers they buy lettuce from. j , ' 7L if-" m. i. j' jntlff inkm f -4 f S U nvu a-w.? r w- s "I i - I , mt ii u i their right to decent living liv-ing conditions). Owners of stores and stands have a surprising amount of control over what they sell. It's very important that shoppers, businesses, stores and yes, churches learn to recognize their social responsibilities." On Feb. 20, 1971 there was a march through the Northwest section of Salt Lake City in support of the lettuce boycott. Over 200 people participated in demonstrating demon-strating against Albertson's Albert-son's and Safeway, major chains in Salt Lake City that do not carry UFWOC lettuce. War-shaw's, War-shaw's, however, does carry United Farmworkers Farmwork-ers lettuce which can be identified by the black eagle on the label. The University Food Service does not use UFWOC lettuce let-tuce either. Students should request that they buy from a distributor who carries United Farmworkers Farm-workers lettuce. La Causa, however, goes behond the union struggle for recognition, to the recognition of a whole race-La Raza-of Chicanos from the bar- According to a column in the Salt Lake Tribune of January 8, 1971, written by Frank Mankiewicz and Tom Braden, "In the three months ended Sept. 30, 1970 (later figures not yet available), Pentagon food buyers paid $750,000 to Antle (Bud Antle Inc., a non-UFWOC lettuce producer) for lettuce, more than in the previous 12 months. What is more, Antle is receiving from presumably sharp-eyed sharp-eyed military buyers-a price not only a above the market price, but also above what the Pentagon is paying other lettuce producers." It is not strange that the Department of Defense should feel obligated to support Antle Inc. by paying them inflated prices for their lettuce in order to break the strike: Antle has an interesting link with the Dow Chemical Company, a recipient of numerous government contracts. Since 1961, Dow has manufactured the wrappers that Antle lettuce comes in and the two companies are Justice, was quoted as saying, "This boy (Cesar Chavez, founder of the UFWOC) knows all the commie tactics. He knows how to arouse people against us. You can tell he's darn well trained Salinas has a darn good police department. We are just a bunch of people trying to see that no one gets killed. We want to keep little Cesar from tying up the whole valley and the whole nation. It's time Americans started acting like Americans." Yes, Mr. Priddy, it is time that Americans started acting like Americans, but I am afraid that your definition of "American" is different than mine, for I believe that Farm workers are Americans, too. They should be given the rights that the Constitution Constitu-tion grants to all men and the rights of collective bargaining and representation that American labor has enjoyed for the last thirty years. Father Cross, a local Saunas priest, showed his concern for the farm workers when he crossed a nos across me nation who are trapped in poverty by prejudice. A declaration that was made in Delano exemplifies this movement by proclaiming, 'This is the beginning begin-ning of a social movement in fact and not in pronouncements. We seek our basic, God-given rights as human beings. Because we have suffered and are not afraid to suffer inorder to survive, we are ready to give up everything, even our lives, in our fight for social justice. We shall do it without violence because that is our destiny ... We do not want the paternalism of the rancher; we do not want the contractor; we do not want charity at'the price of our dignity. We want to be equal with all the working men in the nation ; we want a just wage better working conditions, a decent future for our children." To support La Causa, it is important that you only buy lettuce that has the black eagle union label on it. |