[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 68 (Friday, May 26, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RECOGNIZING ARTURO S. RODRIGUEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. HILDA L. SOLIS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 25, 2006

  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, along with my colleague from 
California, Mr. Berman, to pay tribute to Arturo S. Rodriguez, 
president of the United Farmworkers of America, a longtime advocate for 
the rights of workers and working families.
  Rodriguez was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and earned a 
bachelor's degree from St. Mary's University in 1971 and a master's 
degree in social work in 1973 from the University of Michigan at Ann 
Arbor. Rodriguez learned of the farmworker movement and Cesar Chavez in 
1966 from his parish priest, and became active with the farm-worker 
movement as a college student. He first met Cesar Chavez in 1973, and 
soon after married Chavez' daughter, Linda.
  Throughout the 1970s, Rodriguez worked with United Farm Workers to 
push for farm worker rights, including the pioneering Agricultural 
Labor Relations Act, which passed the California State Legislature in 
1975. Rodriguez helped organize union representation elections 
throughout California, from the Salinas Valley to the Imperial Valley 
on the Mexican border to Ventura County citrus orchards. By fall 1979, 
Rodriguez was directing a UFW lettuce boycott in Michigan.
  Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Rodriguez was directly involved 
with renewed grape boycotts, involving pressure on business, a public 
fast by Chavez, and walkouts by grape workers to try and gain the first 
wage increase in 8 years. The UFW-supported 1992 grape worker walkout 
was a part of the largest vineyard demonstrations since 1973 in the 
Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. The UFW organized thousands of 
workers at dozens of ranches to participate in the walkouts. Those 
efforts produced an industry-wide pay raise.
  Rodriguez became UFW president in May 1993, shortly after Cesar 
Chavez' death. Rodriguez recruited 10,000 new farmworkers as associate 
union members in the year after he assumed the UFW presidency. On the 
first anniversary of the Chavez' passing, Rodriguez led a 343-mile 
Delano-to-Sacramento march retracing the steps of an historic trek by 
Chavez in 1966. Since then, the UFW has won over 20 union elections and 
signed over 20 new, or first-time, contracts with growers.
  Farm workers under most UFW contracts at mushroom, rose, citrus, 
strawberry, wine grape and vegetable companies enjoy decent pay, 
complete family medical care, job security, paid holidays and 
vacations, pensions and a host of other benefits. Unfortunately, the 
majority of farm workers in California and the rest of the nation still 
have none of these protections. Arturo Rodriguez continues to advocate 
for federal legislation that would allow undocumented farm workers and 
their family members to earn legal status by working in agriculture.
  Rodriguez lives at the UFW's national headquarters at La Paz in 
Keene, Calif. He has three children, Olivia, Julia and Arthur IV, plus 
two grandchildren, Isabella and Sofia. I ask my colleagues to join with 
me in honoring Artie for his commitment to farmworkers and their 
families throughout our Nation.

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