Dolores Huerta, legendary human-rights worker and co-founder – with César Chávez -- of United Farm Workers (UFW) – speaks more deeply about her work with Lawrence Ellis & Associates.

Situation Summary

With the founding of the National Farm Workers Association (now United Farm Workers, or UFW) in 1962, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta brought the plight of migrant farm workers in the U.S. to the world’s attention, and engaged millions of people in actions to transform the horrendous conditions under which farm workers toiled. Since then, while conditions have improved for tens of thousands of farm workers, they are still deplorable for tens of thousands more.

For example, according to the U.S. Bureau of Census, farm workers have the lowest family income of any surveyed occupation . A strawberry picker can work twelve-hour days for nine months straight and make under $9000. In one epidemiological study, farm workers showed higher incidences of leukemia, stomach, uterine cervix, and endometrial cancer than their non-farmer worker counterparts – possibly because of overexposure to pesticides and other toxins. Children of farm workers are likely to have the highest exposure to pesticides of any group of people in the U.S. Recent studies have linked pesticides with childhood leukemia, kidney tumors, brain tumors, and learning and memory problems. Hundreds of thousands of children and teens labor under horrendous conditions each year in fields, orchards, and packing sheds across the United States, placing the U.S. at risk of noncompliance with the United Nation’s International Labor Organization’s "Worst Forms of Child Labor" Convention, prohibiting exploitative and harmful work by children .

A Just Harvest (AJH) was founded in 1998 as an interfaith clergy and lay-leadership organization that works to ensure that farm workers may live their lives with dignity, respect and basic human rights. Within two years of its inception, the organization had become legendary in the eyes of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and other organizations that work tirelessly for farm workers' rights. With very few resources, AJH had constantly managed to organize and mobilize substantial support across a wide spectrum of faith communities.

Soon after AJH was founded, Lawrence Ellis joined the group’s Core Leadership Team as a representative of the international peace-building arm of his faith community.

From Dolores Huerta’s perspective

"The impact of a group like A Just Harvest is considerable. Not only do they increase the visibility of our struggle and engage great numbers of people from their faith communities in that struggle, but they also ignite tremendous hope and inspiration in numerous farm workers – many of whom come from religious backgrounds.

Lawrence’s contributions to AJH and to helping to transform the suffering of farm workers have been outstanding. As a member of the AJH Core Leadership Team, Lawrence participated whole-heartedly in all of their activities. This included going to the fields to bear witness to farm workers’ struggles, participating in press conferences and other activities to raise public awareness of the issues, encouraging dialogues and reconciliation between industry growers and farm worker advocates, and mobilizing faith communities in campaigns and marches supporting justice for farm workers.

However, even within this dedicated team, several of Lawrence’s contributions stood out:

• He was the number one fundraiser – among thousands – for the annual César Chávez walk-a-thon;

• He researched and co-wrote a fact-sheet—which was circulated throughout his faith community – on violations of farm workers’ human rights;

• He so effectively mobilized participation from his faith community that the 1999 UFW executive report commented on the "unprecedented outpouring of support" from this community;

• He used his professional consulting skills to make the AJH Core Leadership Team more cohesive – a contribution noted by others. For example, he helped to craft their mission statement, introduced several group process and organizational effectiveness techniques, and occasionally facilitated Team sessions;

• He coordinated and emceed the two-hour interfaith service that preceded the inaugural César Chávez state holiday celebration, at the invitation of the Regional Director of UFW’s San Francisco Bay Area offices. The service, and the entire parade, were more successful than we could have imagined.

Lawrence’s commitment to issues of justice is so strong that he engaged in civil disobedience to support low-wage urban workers who were facing serious injustices. I have no doubt that he would have engaged in similar actions to support farm workers, had such action been required.

I particularly appreciated the care with which Lawrence transitioned off of the team after a two-year term. Specifically, months before his departure, he identified two members of his faith community who could replace him on the Core Leadership Team, brought them to meetings to acquaint them with the organization, and began training them to assume leadership roles.

Lawrence contributed significantly to AJH and to the farm worker’s struggle by using his professional organizational skills to make AJH more effective, and by catalyzing tremendous response from his faith community. While we will miss his direct involvement in AJH, I know that he incorporates farm worker issues into other aspects of his economic-justice work and other endeavors." – Dolores Huerta, Cofounder – with César Chávez – of the United Farm Workers (UFW)

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