This dissertation examines the failed efforts of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) to organize workers in California's central coast strawberry industry. In 1995 the UFW initiated a campaign to organize 20,000 workers along the state's central coast. In 1997 the UFW, with the help of the AFL-CIO, orchestrated the sale of the largest strawberry grower in the region to pro-union investors. Despite union friendly owners the UFW had difficulty making inroads among the workers at the Coastal Berry Company. In 1998 and 1999 the UFW lost state sponsored elections to an independent anti-UFW called the Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee (Comite). Both times the UFW contested the election results in court. The matter was settled in March 2000 when an administrative law judge issued a ruling to split the bargaining unit. The Comite would be the bargaining agent for Coastal Berry's main operation in northern California and the UFW would represent workers in the company's southern district.;The central issue addressed in this study is why, despite enjoying all the factors that scholars traditionally see as facilitating social movement success: material and human resources, political allies, and a sympathetic media and general public, the UFW was unable to organize workers. I develop an explanatory framework that draws from the literature on social movements, the political economy of agriculture, immigration, labor, transnationalism and ethnic identity formation. To understand the failure of the campaign I consider the social relations of production within the strawberry industry, intra-ethnic differences, and UFW organizational culture and structure. I contend that these three factors contributed to the failure of the UFW campaign and the popularity of the anti-UFW Comite.;This study is based on 53 in-depth interviews conducted with strawberry pickers, campaign organizers, union leaders, industry officials, Coastal Berry personal, local farmers and community leaders. In addition I reviewed court records, government documents, and industry publications to evaluate the events of the campaign.
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