While the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA) and its successor union, the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America (FTA) was only in existence between 1937 and 1951, it attracted much attention first as one of the most quickly growing of the new CIO unions, and latter as one of several unions expelled from the CIO during the 1950 anti-communist "trials." A focus of FTA's organizing drive was the canneries, packing sheds and in the fields of California.

California agriculture in the 1930s was marked by a greater and greater concentration of land and food processing facilities in the hands of large corporations. Growers, shippers, processors and canners were organized in various ways to protect and promote their mutual interests. Some of these organizations were simply grower cooperatives which allowed members to obtain everything from seed to tractor tires at a discount. Others, such as the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California (GSA), and the California Packers and Growers (CP & G), were dominated by large growers, shipping companies, or canneries. Typically, such organizations had ties to other pro-business groups and large corporations (such as the Industrial Association of San Francisco, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG & E), Bank of America and others). One of the chief aims of these organizations would be to obstruct union organizing among their members' employees. The strikes at Salinas (1936) and Stockton (1937) exemplify the tactics of employer associations: the fostering of the Associated Farmers, the establishment of local "Citizen's Committees" in cooperation with anti-union Chambers of Commerce, the use of professional public relations consultants, the pooling of resources and profits during strikes, and a strong determination to crush all independent union activity.1

UCAPAWA/FTA also faced the difficult task of overcoming the competing forces of the hostile State Federation of Labor and even conservatives within the CIO. The State Federation of Labor would become an important ally of employers in its effort to head off any success by the industrial based CIO. Throughout its lifetime, FTA would find its strength sapped by rival AFL unions, some of which achieved closed shops with the help of employers. AS for the CIO, FTA would eventually prove too much of a political liability. In the "conform or get out" push, FTA and other unions came under intense pressure to shed left wing elements from their leadership. In 1950, the FTA was expelled from the CIO.2

On the eve of the "Battle of Salinas," the Salinas-Watsonville area produced 90% of all lettuce eaten in the U.S. Organizing work among packing shed workers had been going on for several years. In 1932, the Vegetable Packers' Association, Local 18211 was formed, but made little progress. In 1935, the AFL chartered the Fruit and Vegetable Workers' Union (F & VWU), Local 18211 which, after a strike in which two workers were killed, won a one-year contract from the GSA.3 Negotiations for a new contract were carried on over the summer of 1936. However, the GSA had little desire to reach an agreement. Plans had already been made to break the union, and as the September 1st deadline passed, and the union voted to continue work under the terms of the 1935 contract, the GSA posted in members' sheds a new contract with lower wages. The GSA claimed this contract would be in force for one year should employees work under it. This resulted in a walk-out by approximately 3,500 workers.4

Having laid the public relations ground work for an anti-union campaign through the Citizen's Association of the Salinas Valley (funded by the GSA, PG & E, Spreckels Sugar Co., local banks and businessmen), the GSA moved to crush the strike. Union leaders were denounced as communists, and a "citizen's army" of 1,000 was mobilized with the help of the Associated Farmers, deputized by the Sheriff and armed with clubs and tear-gas bombs. Meanwhile, all packing and shipping activities were consolidated at the Salinas Valley Ice Company, which was deemed to be easily defendable from striking workers. Guards with machine guns kept watch over high fences, while inside scabs packed lettuce, and slept and ate in train cars provided by the Southern Pacific Railroad. All costs and all profits were pooled among the membership. Violence erupted, and the strike was put down with a degree of violence which the NLRB deemed, "in many instances bordering on sadism."

In the midst of the strike, the union and workers were abandoned by the chairman of the State Federation of Labor, Edward Vandeleur. Vandeleur had been contacted before the strike by the GSVA's public relations consultant, and siding against Local 18211 (accusing them of being communists), pulled the union's legal representative out of the Salinas area at the height of the crisis. This is probably when the union retained Richard Gladstein's San Francisco law office, perhaps through the ILWU. Later, with the help of the Growers, Vandeleur set up a rival local and revoked Local 18211's AFL charter. The issue of "company unions" would be an important aspect of the legal battles after Salinas and would become a pattern throughout northern California.

After the strike, the GSA took steps to exclude union organizers from work. To this end, they continued the use of a centralized hiring hall and a blacklist.5 As workers were hired back after the strike, preference was given to those who owed money in town, had dependents or could in some way be more easily coerced. The union, having been abandoned in the midst of the strike by the chairman of the State Federation of Labor, continued organizational work, and in 1937 changed its affiliation to the new United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA-CIO), as UCAPAWA Local 78. Its jurisdiction included the Salinas-Watsonville area, the Imperial Valley, and the Salt River Valley of Arizona. In 1944, this local became FTA Local 78.6

Charges of communist influence, and the rivalry between the AFL and the CIO would be dominant issues in the life of Local 78. In 1948, the local (with a membership of 10,000) successfully fought off a Teamsters raid lead by expelled Local 78 president, Holman Day. The Teamsters raids created much bitterness between the FTA and the CIO, as the CIO offered little aid to the FTA, and many accused CIO officials of openly helping Day in an attempt to get rid of the left-leaning FTA.7 In 1950 the CIO expelled the FTA for "following the purpose and program of the communist party."8 The FTA International, and Local 78, merged with two other unions to become the Distributive, Processing and Office Workers of America (DPOWA). In the fall of 1950, the CIO mounted a successful raid on Local 78 and won an NLRB election to become the bargaining agent for the territory of Local 78.9

The events in Stockton during April 1937 follow a similar pattern to those of Salinas and could be considered the perfection of the "Salinas Plan." The Agricultural Workers' Union-AFL, Local 20211, was organized with the help of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union-AFL (ILWU) and was given jurisdiction over all of northern California's canneries.10 In Stockton, as in Salinas, the key issues for the union were collective bargaining, preferential hiring of union members, and an end to anti-union discrimination in hiring, as well as wages and working conditions. The AWU claimed a membership of 567 out of 1,400 cannery workers in the area. At the Stockton Food Products plant, however, the union claimed 360 of 450 workers as members. While the union hoped for modest gains in this plant alone, the powerful California Processers and Growers (CP & G) moved to eliminate unionism from northern California canneries in general.11

Following the pattern laid down in Salinas, CP & G with the help of the Merchants, Manufacturers and Employers Association (MMEA) of Stockton, established a citizen's committee which sent letters to local growers and merchants warning that Longshoremen and Communist pickets were coming to beat up local workers and farmers. Violence at the Stockton Food Products plant flared as the company tried to drive non-striking workers through the picket line and into the plant. This precipitated the calling up of a "Pick-handle Army" by the Sheriff. Approximately 1,200 men were recruited, organized along military lines, and armed with pick handles. This organizing work was done by Colonel Walter Garrison, prominent anti-communist and founder of the Associated Farmers of San Joaquin County. The union attempted conciliation, but workers were forced into a provocative situation by the canners. Violence flared again as workers prepared to go back to work, and the strike was broken.

Organizing in the Stockton area continued under UCAPAWA/FTA Local 7, and faced similar problems (company-sponsored unions, Teamster raids, the hostility of conservatives within the CIO) as those which eventually defeated FTA Local 78. The cannery drive of 1945 was marginally successful against the Teamster-CP & G alliance, and in the late 1940s the union began to organize asparagus cutters.12 Workers in the asparagus fields were mostly Filipino immigrants who traveled between the fields around Stockton, and the canneries of the Alaska salmon industry (salmon cannery workers were known as Alaskeros).13

Richard Gladstein's law firm represented Local 7 in the legal battles arising from the 1937 Stockton Strike and many cases arising from the 1948 strike of asparagus cutters. The issues of these cases involved such things as 1) housing conditions for field workers; 2) the system of holding back part of workers pay until the harvest is over; and 3) violations of union members' right to picket. It is also possible that the law offices were involved in the defense of Local 7 officials under threat of deportation for alleged communist activities or sympathies. However, these cases are not represented in the FTA collection.

When the FTA was expelled from the CIO, Local 7, unlike Local 78, joined the ILWU as the Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union Local 7-C. Soon the union became ILWU Local 37. The changes in union name did not reflect changes in personnel.