- Department:
- Department of History and the Latino Studies Program
- Campus:
- IU Bloomington
The Midwest’s Farmworker Justice Movement
Dr. Juan Mora seeks to reveal the historical significance of the farmworker justice movement in the Midwest since the 1980s, which has been at the forefront of strengthening workplace protections, addressing health and safety standards for workers in the fields, and advocating for workers’ empowerment. The history of farmworker justice movements has been most commonly associated organizationally with the United Farm Workers (UFW), temporally with the 1960s, and regionally with California. Dr. Mora seeks to reframe these popular understandings by focusing on the successful organizing efforts led by Obreros Unidos in Wisconsin and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana in the 1980s. In particular, FLOC’s accomplishments in the 1980s transformed the landscape of organized labor and agribusiness. While reactionary politics, weakened labor laws, and economic transformations created a challenging environment for labor during the late- twentieth century, FLOC succeeded in securing union contracts for Latinx migrant farmworkers in the Midwest.