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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-8211
Cesar Chavez, champion of the nation's farm workers, will be honored by
the Labor Hall of Fame in the U.S. Department of Labor's headquarters,
Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman announced today.
An exhibit paying tribute to Chavez, founder and president of the United
Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, will be added to the Hall of Fame in a
ceremony at 4 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 28). The ceremony will be held in the
auditorium of the department's Frances Perkins Building, 200 Constitution Ave.
NW, Washington, D.C.
"Cesar Chavez was a great leader and it is a privilege to honor him with
a place in the Labor Hall of Fame," Secretary Herman said. "He was a visionary
and a man of courage who fought for the dignity of all workers."
Officiating at the ceremony in addition to Herman will be W. J. Usery
Jr., a former secretary of labor who is chairman of the Labor Hall of Fame,
current officials of the farm workers' union, members of Chavez's family and
other representatives of organized labor.
Chavez was chosen by the 10-member Labor Hall of Fame selection panel, a
group of labor, management and public representatives which is independent of
the Labor Department and is headed by Monsignor George G. Higgins of Catholic
University.
An advocate of nonviolence who fought for many years to improve
conditions of farm workers and their families through boycotts, strikes and
personal fasts, Chavez was a hero to millions. He died in 1993.
Chavez once said, "If to build our union required the deliberate taking
of life, either the life of a grower or his child, or the life of a farm worker
or his child, then I choose not to see the union built."
The UFWA grew out of the National Farm Workers Association, widely known
as La Causa. During the 1960s and later, it attracted the support of students,
religious groups, consumers, minority groups and other unions. Its boycotts,
organized from its headquarters in Delano, Calif., targeted non-union lettuce,
grapes and other agricultural products.
Chavez had already achieved nationwide fame when he was awarded the
Medal of Freedom posthumously by President Clinton in 1993.
The Labor Hall of Fame has honored 21 men and women who have made
outstanding contributions to the welfare of America's workers. There are
individual exhibits celebrating the life of each and video presentations that
highlight their achievements.
The hall, located in the rear of the Perkins building lobby, is open to
the public during the department's working hours. It was created in 1988 by
Friends of the Department of Labor, an organization of former department
employees and others supporting the department's goals of improving the lives
of working men and women.
In recent years, one person has been added to the Labor Hall of Fame
each year.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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