User:OutskirtAZ/Oxnard strike of 1903

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Before The Strike

Since these contractors had already caused minor slowdowns and protests over wages, recently arrived bank owners and merchants organized an owner-interest oriented contracting company called the Western Agricultural Contracting Company (WACC). The WACC quickly replaced the Japanese contractors as principal contractors to the Oxnard Plain and even forced some of them to subcontract through the WACC. <*This process adversely affected farmworkers as well as the WACC charged them a fee for subcontracting beneath them. Additionally, the WACC regularly refused to pay laborers in cash and instead compensated them with credit for company stores which often sold goods at unreasonably high prices.*> Comprising more than 90 percent of the work force, the WACC had a near monopoly of the workers. <*The WACC comprised of two distinct departments, one tasked with the oversight of Japanese laborers and labor contractors and another tasked with the oversight of Mexican laborers and labor contractors. Workers under both of these departments were displeased by the conduct of the WACC and. As a result, a large group of Japanese farmworkers and labor contractors organized a meeting at the beginning of February 1903 where they discussed their outrage at the working conditions and low wages under the WACC.*>

The Strike and the JMLA

On February 11, 1903, 500 Japanese and 200 Mexican laborers became the charter members of the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) joined together and formed their organization based on the grievances of the Oxnard laborers. <Despite its status as a farmworker's labor union, the membership of the JMLA comprised of laborers working under contract, labor contractors, and temporary workers - many of whom were students from Japan. Aside from unifying distinct groups of workers, the JMLA is most notable for being the first major agricultural union in California to unite agricultural workers of different minority groups.> Overcoming obvious language barriers between the two constituent groups, they immediately elected Kosaburo Baba (president), Y. Yamaguchi (secretary of the Japanese branch), and J.M. Lizarras (secretary of the Mexican branch); Baba and Lizarras were both labor contractors and Yamaguchi has been recognized as a boarding student recruited from San Francisco. Their immediate concerns opposed the WACC on three conditions:

• they accused the WACC of artificially suppressing wages;
• they opposed the subcontracting system arguing that it forced workers to pay double commissions; and
• they called for the freedom to buy goods rather than be subjected to the inflated prices of the company store.

In order to remedy these issues, the JMLA membership ceased working through the WACC (essentially declaring a strike). The strike came at a serendipitously precarious time in the sugar beet season, the staple crop of Oxnard Plain agriculture, since the labor-intensive and yield-defining work of thinning the seedlings needed to be done within the scope of a few weeks.

By the first week in March, the JMLA recruited a membership larger than 1,200 workers (over 90% of the labor force of the county's beet industry). The JMLA's increased recruitment pulled the WACC's former contracted workers from it and essentially brought the sugar industry to a standstill.

On March 23, 1903, the strike reached its turning point. Although an official investigation blamed the violence and sole death of Mexican laborer Luis Vasquez on the strikers, witnesses certify that Anglo farmers shot into a crowd of strikers thus killing Vasquez and wounding four others. With the highly negative press reaction to the incident, the WACC conceded to most of the laborers' demands.

Japanese and Mexican laborers, formerly pitted against each other, had unified to achieve their labor goals.<With the WACC as their common enemy, Japanese and Mexican farmworkers recognized their primary struggle as an issue of class conflict. This was particularly evident as JMLA membership viewed Anglo, Mexican, and Japanese contractors who worked in conjunction with the WACC as antagonists to their cause.> The success JMLA achieved showed the effectiveness of a multi-racial labor front and showed that class and Asian and Mexican shared oppression could be the unifier in labor organizing. <Following their victory against the WACC, the JMLA sought to charter as the Sugar Beet Farm Laborer's Union of Oxnard (SBFLU) under the American Federation of Labor (AFL). However, the JMLA withdrew their request to charter under the AFL after AFL president Samuel Gompers refused to recognize the memberships of Asian sugar beet workers.>

Feedback from Instructor

These look like useful additions. However, I'd like to see more contributions, either to this article or another. What are you thinking of doing next? Saguaro23 (talk) 20:00, 21 October 2021 (UTC)