Dolores Huerta

Co-founder and Secretary-Treasurer
United Farm Workers of America

After teaching elementary school for a short time, Dolores Huerta left to work with farm workers.  In 1955, Ms. Huerta was a founding member of the Stockton, California chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), which opposed segregation and lobbied for better conditions for farm workers.

After founding the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960, Ms. Huerta became a lobbyist in Sacramento.  The following year, she fought for legislation making non-U.S. citizens eligible for pensions and public assistance.  Ms. Huerta also backed successful legislation that allowed people to vote and take driver’s license examinations in Spanish.

In 1962, Ms. Huerta and activist Cesar Chavez founded the organization that later became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).

In 1973, the UFW began a nationwide consumer boycott of California grapes, lettuce, and Gallo wines that resulted in the California table-grape growers signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the UFW.  Another boycott resulted in passage of the U.S. Agricultural Labor Relations Act, giving farm workers the right to organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions.

Aside from currently serving as the Secretary-Treasurer of United Farm Workers of America, Ms. Huerta is the vice-president of the Coalition for Labor Union Women, the vice-president of the California AFL-CIO, and a board member of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, which advocates for the political and equal rights for women.