The Stubborn 1,000: The Watsonville Canneries Strike Opening Event

The Watsonville Canneries Strike, 1985 – 1987

Watsonville, in the heart of the agricultural Pajaro Valley, was once known as the "frozen food capital of the world" with a large number of canneries processing the majority of frozen food products sold in the United States. In September 1985, nearly half of the town's 4,000 cannery workers went out on a strike to protest reductions in wages and benefits at the Watsonville Canning and Shaw Frozen Food Companies.

The strike was led predominantly by Mexican and Mexican-American women. They went up against the cannery owners, the powerful agribusiness machine, local police, and their own union, which had become entrenched and unresponsive. After battling for 18 months, strikers rejected an initial poor settlement negotiated by the union, pushing back against larger pay cuts and winning medical benefits for all workers, seniority rights and striker amnesty. But most of all, they gained organizing and leadership skills and a voice in the future of their community.

As striker Margarita Páramo explained: "We knew we had won, and we began to feel that we had won more than the strike, ganamos dignidad y un futuro bueno para nuestros hijos" (we won dignity and a good future for our children).

This exhibition was generously funded by the Friends of the J. Paul Leonard Library