Abstract

That California Dictatorship

The article explorers various issues related to the social condition of agricultural workers in California. The first battle between the classes was fought out during the period of the growth of the Industrial workers of the World. The second round in the series was started by a small strike of tree pruners in Vacaville in the fall of 1932, led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union. In August, just as the peach picking was reaching its height, the pickers on the Tagus ranch, a large corporation farm near Tulare, walked out. It was a well-prepared strike. In the last weeks of September, with more than 20,000 workers concentrated in the cotton fields, the union issued a call for a general strike when the demands for higher wages and union recognition were refused.