But the movement won fair pay and living conditions for many farmworkers and their families and medical and pension benefits for many migrant workers. Tragically, over the past 12 years, many of the gains farmworker activists struggled so hard to achieve have been reversed. Workers have suffered an outrageous decline in agricultural law enforcement and safety and health. A new group of cancer- causing pesticides threaten not only consumer health, but farmworkers lives. Despite the protracted campaign by Chavez and the United Farm Workers to bring the plight of U.S. farmworkers to the attention of the media, there is still widespread public disbelief as to the extent of exploitation suffered by farmworkers.
Workers toil for poverty wages.
Farmwork includes the largest single child labor force in the United States, with children as young as seven and eight working full days alongside their parents. Pesticides endanger the lives of farmworker families. These obstacles failed to destroy the spirit of Cesar Chavez and the movement for farmworker justice. His vision, guided by an unflagging belief in the dignity of all people, remains. That principle, which has guided the work of the United Farm Workers in the past, will continue to feed the union s commitment to farmworkers.