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The Vacaville tree pruners' strike of 1932 was a two-month strike beginning on November 14 by the CAWIU in Vacaville, California, USA. The strikers were protesting a cut in tree pruning wages from $1.40 for an eight-hour workday to $1.25 for a nine-hour workday. The strike was characterized by multiple incidences of violence, including a break-in at the Vacaville jail that resulted in the kidnapping and abuse of six arrested strike leaders. The strikers were ultimately unsuccessful in demanding higher wages and fewer hours and the CAWIU voted to end the strike on January 20, 1933. == Background == The Cannery and Agricultural Workers' International Union (CAWIU), formerly known as the Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union (AWIU), was a Communist-aligned union active in California in the early 1930s. Early in its career the CAWIU involved itself primarily in spontaneous agricultural strikes, including the Santa Clara Valley cannery workers strike in July 1931 and the California pea pickers strike in May 1932. However, the union focused little on recruiting and organizing a large group of permanent members. Following the failures of these two strikes the CAWIU leaders realized the difficulty of establishing a solid agricultural labor movement around spontaneous and unplanned uprisings. The CAWIU became more effective in its operating and organizing due to the leadership of Sam Darcy. Darcy became the organizer for District 13 (which included California, Nevada, and Arizona) of the Communist Party USA in 1931. At the time District 13 had a membership of less than 300 and a treasury of $6. Darcy's main focus was organizing California's unemployed and agricultural workers. He immediately began recruiting and training organizers from the working class because he believed they would relate to, and thus more easily recruit, the California farm workers. Darcy felt that the only hope of success for the Communist party in District 13 was to disregard its own political interests in favor of improving the wages and working conditions of the workers. Inspired by Darcy's leadership the CAWIU called a conference of all its members on July 18, 1932, with the purpose of establishing a basis for strong organization. The CAWIU resolved to maintain its headquarters in San Jose as a concentration point from which the union would expand. Second, conference delegates agreed that the union's leadership must be reflective of its membership in terms of race, sex, and age. Third, they agreed that all union activities were to enforce demands regarding wages, working conditions, and union recognition, and that careful organization was necessary for any union action. To ensure that every farm worker could afford membership the delegates established the lowest possible initiation fees and monthly dues. Employed workers paid an initiation fee of 50 cents and unemployed workers paid only 10 cents, while monthly dues were 30 cents for working members and 5 cents for the unemployed. During the months following the San Jose conference CAWIU organizers were greatly active in the three-valley region of Santa Clara, Salinas, and Pajaro, which they selected at the conference for special attention. However, this did not mean that other areas were neglected. For several months a group of CAWIU organizers from Sacramento had been actively recruiting farm workers in Vacaville. When orchardists cut their tree pruners' wages on November 14, 1932, the CAWIU had gained ample influence among local farm workers to call the first prearranged strike in its history. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vacaville tree pruners' strike」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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