National Farm Workers of America

Tom Mooney Papers

dgolodner — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 10:33:53 -0400

Tom Mooney was born September 12, 1954 in Albany, New York. Mooney attended Guardian Angel’s Catholic School and McNicholas High School in Cincinnati and then Antioch College from 1970-1973 focusing on political science and teaching. In high school, Mooney became involved in the United Farm Workers boycott committee in Cincinnati, becoming one of the lead volunteers. This exposed him to social justice and radical political ideas. At Antioch he set up a boycott office and surrounded himself in radical political thought, especially with Marxist-Leninist ideologies.
During the mid to late 1970s Mooney was involved in Marxist-Leninist organizations, especially with the New American Movement and the Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center. After the OCIC folded in 1981, Mooney aligned himself with the Democratic Party.
Mooney was hired as a full time teacher at Bloom Junior High in late 1974 early 1975. He immediately joined the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers Local 1520 (CFT) and was elected as building representative for the school. He was then transferred to Crest Hill Middle School. Mr. Mooney then was elected as the Area 6 coordinator in 1977-1978. Mooney was elected president of the CFT in 1979 at the age of 24.
As president of the CFT, he led the local into the national spotlight by bargaining education reform programs. Under his leadership the local negotiated the 2nd Peer Assistance and Evaluation Program in the country and the 1985 contract secured more control for teachers over grading and promotion standards. With the next round of bargaining in 1988 the CFT and board of education used a “win-win” style of negotiations in which they achieved unique career ladder system called Career in Teaching Program. In 1991 Mooney helped negotiate a new student discipline code that brought more order to the classroom, protecting teachers and students. Mooney became president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers in 2000.
Mooney began attending AFT conventions siding with the more radical fringes of the AFT political arena, which was the United Action Caucus but by 1981 joined the Progressive Caucus. In 1988, the AFT asked Tom to be apart of the a labor delegation to go to Chile to be an observer of the Plebiscite in which he reflected that it was “one of the most moving experiences of my life.” In 1990 he was elected to the AFT executive council and sat on the human and community relations committee. In 1998 he was asked to serve on the AFT executive committee and chair the AFT K-12 Program and Policy Council. He later resigned the position of chair over the stance that the AFT took on No Child Left Behind.
Tom Mooney died of a heart attack on December 3, 2006 at his apartment in Columbus, Ohio.

UFW Central Administration Records

drice — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:30:00 -0400

Subjects include: California boycotts; migrant laborers; immigration and farm labor legislation; farm worker health; Prop 22; Dolores Huerta; California agribusiness

UFW Office of the President: Cesar Chavez Records

drice — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:34:57 -0400

Cesar Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association, later known as the United Farm Workers, in 1962 at a convention he called. Growing up a migrant farm worker he honed his skills as an organizer with the Community Services Organization in California before splitting with them to form the NFWA. He would serve as president of the UFW until his death in 1993. These records reflect Chavez's beginnings with the CSO and the formative years of the NFWA, United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, and the UFW as well as some milestones in his personal life.

Philip Vera Cruz Papers

drice — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:07:32 -0400

Philip Vera Cruz (Dec 25, 1904 – June 12, 1994) was born in Saoag, Ilocos Sur,
Philippines. He worked on farms in the Philippines before traveling to the United States
in 1926. Vera Cruz worked several odd jobs around the Midwest, but was not active in
any union before moving to California in 1943 and becoming a farm worker. He joined
the Agricultural Worker Organizing Committee (AWOC) and soon became a leader in
farm workers rights. In 1965 he was an active force in the AWOC decision to strike
against grape growers in Delano, CA. The strike and boycott soon won the support of
Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers of America, and led to the eventual
merging of the two groups to form the United Farm Workers. Vera Cruz was elected a
vice president of the union, a position he held until he left the union in protest of Chavez
in 1977, though he continued to be active in his retirement. Cruz also formed the Farm
Workers Credit Union and created Agbayani Village, a retirement community for older
farm workers. Throughout his career Vera Cruz worked for migrant and farm worker
rights, and was very active in the Asian American, especially Filipino, rights movement
and community. In 1987 he received the Ninoy M Aquino Award in the Philippines, and
in 1992 he was honored by the AFL-CIO’s Asian Pacific American Labor Committee.

The papers of Philip Vera Cruz focus on his active years as a California labor leader. It
includes his correspondence, writings and notes, as well as his activity in the UFW and
other organizations and his work in boycotts. Cruz’s research, negotiations, and
collective bargaining work are also included as well as a number of ALRB cases and
resources he collected for farm workers and Filipinos.

Collection Spotlight: Robert F. Kennedy and the UFW

teller — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:42:21 -0400

U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy strongly supported the advance of human rights and in doing so he forged a relationship in the 1960s with the United Farm Workers, a union that sought to improve the lives and working conditions of migrant farm workers across the country. Kennedy supported the workers during a 1966 Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor hearing in Delano, California. In the spring of 1968, read more »

Podcast: Speak to the Earth and it Shall Teach Thee: Catholic Nuns, the United Farm Workers Movement, and the Rise of an Environmental Ethic, 1962-1978

teller — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 15:25:22 -0400

John Buchkoski explores the role that religious women had in grassroots social activism in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly organizations of Catholic women religious. He explains how these groups supported United Farm Worker strikes by publicizing the environmental and health effects of pesticide use and popularizing produce boycotts across Catholic communities. Buchkoski is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma. read more »