Allegations of sexual assault of women and girls against United Farm Workers union founder and Mexican-American civil rights icon Cesar Chavez have shaken the nation and especially California, the birthplace of the union he founded to fight for better treatment of agricultural workers. In a New York Times investigation published March 18, two women who were the daughters of UFW organizers said Chavez sexually abused them when they were girls in the 1970s. UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta, 95, told the Times that Chavez sexually assaulted her twice in the 1960s. Huerta said in a public statement published the same day that she stayed quiet to protect the United Farm Workers and its struggle for farmworker rights. “I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here,” Huerta said.
For Ana Avendaño, those revelations did not come as a surprise. A veteran labor lawyer and former assistant to two AFL-CIO presidents between 2009 and 2014, she told Capital & Main that, in general, unions have failed to effectively combat sexism and sexual harassment, even after the MeToo movement forced the ouster of several prominent labor leaders in the late 2010s. But several have undergone a cultural shift, providing a road map that others can follow. Avendaño is the author of the book Solidarity Betrayed: How Unions Enable Sexual Harassment and an adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York.
