"You Can Win": SF Activist On Cesar Chavez

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

“Despite overwhelming odds, if you know what you’re doing, you can win; that’s the lesson and legacy of Cesar Chavez,” said Randy Shaw (r) yesterday at the Department of Labor. Shaw,  author of “Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century,” was the featured speaker at AFGE Local 12’s special commemoration of Chavez’ birthday, which included a noontime screening of a brief film about the farmworker leader and civil rights activist, co-sponsored by the DC Labor FilmFest. “The farmworkers' grassroots campaigns of the late ‘60s look a lot like the Obama campaign,” Shaw said, “And they did it without computers!” Shaw, who lives in California, called new Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis “a warrior for justice,” adding that “there’s absolutely no-one in this country I trust more than her to head up the Department of Labor. She knows that the very best thing we can do for workers is to let you do your job.” During a Q&A session, Shaw, a longtime San Francisco activist who has published two books on activism, expressed confidence that the Employee Free Choice Act “will pass; the question is in what form, and I think it’s going to be a good bill.” Noting the huge influx of volunteers into the Obama campaign last year, especially young voters, Shaw said that “The key now is to keep people engaged and make sure that people don’t just become spectators. The battle for the Free Choice Act won’t be won in Congress, but out in the countryside where the people are.” - report/photo by Chris Garlock