Labor Archives Event

Song of the Stubborn One Thousand | author Peter Shapiro on the Watsonville Canneries Strike

Part of the program series for the Labor Archives’ ongoing exhibition The Stubborn 1,000: The Watsonville Canneries Strike

Peter Shapiro, a labor journalist and author of Song of the Stubborn One Thousand, will speak about the story of the 18-month strike.

In September 1985, nearly half of the Watsonville's 4,000 cannery workers went out on a strike to protest reductions in wages and benefits. They went up against the cannery owners, the powerful agribusiness machine, local police, and even their own union. The victorious strike was led predominantly by Mexican and Mexican-American women, who gained organizing and leadership skills and a voice in the future of their community.  

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).”
— striker Margarita Páramo

Moderated discussion with labor journalist Kim Kelly

A Labor Archives and Research Center Event 

Kim Kelly’s new book, Fight Like Hell provides a look at working class struggles in the United States, detailing the stories of coal miners, sex workers, farmworkers, disability rights activists, and incarcerated workers as they fought for a better world. This talk will draw connections between historical labor struggles and labor organizing in the contemporary.

Kim Kelly is an independent journalist, author, and organizer. She has written about labor, class, politics, and music for Teen Vogue, The New Republic, and VICE, among many others.

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