Tulare labor camps rent strike

The 1965-68 Tulare Labor Camps rent strike was conducted in 1965 in the United States by tenants of the Woodville and Linnell farm labor camps in California against rent increases by the Tulare County Housing Authority and the uninhabitable conditions of the tin huts they lived in.

The strikers consisted of the agricultural workers, headed by the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) alongside support by numerous civil rights and student organizations. It lasted three years and successfully stopped the proposed rent increase, and led to the construction of new houses to replace the tin huts.

It also bolstered the membership and organizing of NFWA, would feed into the organizing behind the Delano grape strike and play a role in helping to publicize it.

Background

One of the primary factors of the rent strike was the inhospitable living conditions for farm workers. In 1938 the Farm Security Administration built 440 one roomed tin shacks for farm workers in the Woodville and Linnell farm labor camps. All had tin roofs and either tin or wood siding. By 1940, six years before the dissolving of the administration, the FSA had been operating 18 camps in California and 56 camps nationwide for migrant workers. Location of Farm Security Administration Migratory Labor Camps, July 1942Region I:MarylandMobile Camps: Hebron, Pocomoke City, Vienna, WestoverNew JerseyMobile Camps: Big Oak, Burlington, SwedesboroRegion IVVirginiaMobile Camps: Black Bay, Lynnhaven, TimbervilleRegion VFloridaEverglades:  S Canal Point, State Highway 143Okeechobee: (Belle Glade, Unit 2, Black) -3.7 mi. S Belle Glade, State Highway 25Osceola: (Belle Glade, Unit 1, White) - ¼ mi. E Chosen on county road NE Belle Glade, and ¾ mi. from State Highway 143 N Belle GladePahokee: SE Canal Point, State Highway 194Pompano: NW Pompano, U.S. Highway 1Region VIArkansasSpringdale: Off U.S. Highway 540Region VIIITexasCrystal City: N Crystal City, U.S. Highway83 Harlingen:  S Harlingen, U.S. Highway 83Lamesa: off U.S. Highway 87McAllen: NE McAllen, U.S. Highway 83Princeton: SE McKinney, State Highway 24Raymondville: 2 mi. W Raymondville, U.S. Highway96 Robstown: 2 mi. N Robstown, State Highway 44Sinton: ¼ mi. W Sinton, State Highway 44Weslaco: at N end of town of WeslacoRegion IXArizonaAgua Fria: 16 mi. W Phoenix, State Highway 77Eleven Mile Corner: 3½ mi. E Casa Grande and ½ mi. N of State Highway 84Yuma: 12 mi. SW YumaMobile Camps: Friendly Corners, GilbertCaliforniaArvin: 17 mi. SE Bakersfield, U.S. Highway 99Brawley: at N end of town of BrawleyCeres: at NW end of town of Ceres, 3 mi. SE Modesto, U.S. Highway 99Firebaugh: at N end of town of FirebaughGridley: 3 mi. E GridleyIndio: 1 mi. SE Indio, U.S. Highway 99Mineral King: 43 mi. S Fresno on U.S. Highway 99, left on State Highway 198, 3 mi. E VisaliaShafter: 1½ mi. NW Shafter and 19 mi. NWBakersfield Thornton: at S end of town of ThorntonTulare: 4 mi. SE Visalia, State Highway198 Westley: at W end of town of WestleyWindsor: 1 mi. W WindsorWinters: 1 mi. NE WintersWoodville: 7 mi. NW Porterville, State Highway 190Yuba City: 1 mi. SE Yuba CityMobile Camps: Brentwood, Santa Maria, Cupertino, Sebastopol, San JacintoRegion XIIdahoCaldwell: 2 mi. W Caldwell, junction Highways 18 and 20Twin Falls: 2 mi. S Twin Falls, Highway 26Mobile Camps: Blackfoot, Payette-Ontario, Emmett, Pocatello, Jerome, Rupert, Marsing, Shelley, Donnelly, Sugar City, Nampa, WilderOregonYamhill: 4 mi. S Dayton, Highway 223 (Dayton-Amity cutoff)Mobile Camps: Athena, Nyssa, Brewster, The Dalles, Coburg, West Stayton, GreshamWashingtonGranger: 2 mi. NW Granger, U.S. Highway 410Walla Walla: 5 mi. SW Walla Walla, Oregon State Highway 11 (1 mi. N Oreg. Line)Yakima: 2 mi. W Union Gap on Ahtanum Road, U.S. Highway 410 Mobile Camps: Auburn, Dixie, Burlington, Kennewick, Dayton, Wapato They were provided initially without charge to farm workers in 1938 by the FSA and the shacks were only planned to be used for 10 years. The housing was then leased to a Growers Association in 1948 for $1 for the whole camp, who then charged rents as high as $5 a week for each shelter for two years. In 1950 the shacks were passed to the Tulare County Housing Authority, who continued to charge rent.

The strike came at a time of massive change for the average agricultural worker in California, the Bracero Program, which existed from 1942 to 1962, had heavily suppressed the wages and labor power of agricultural workers. With its end brought an upswing in permanent residents, and more diverse population of families, while it had previously consisted of largely of single men through the program. This created further need for largely, family oriented housing. The program's end also led to greater leverage for the average agricultural worker in the US.

In 1963, Jim Drake and Gilbert Padilla would visit the camps to distribute free contraceptives. During this they were taken back by the living conditions. Padilla noted, “I was shocked to see those little shacks, those tin shacks…. It was a disgrace to have those people in those labor camps. Especially in those little tin shacks.”

By 1964 rents for the shacks were $18.50 for the first cabin, with an $5 additional cost for each extra cabin, up to $38 a month, when rented by the same family. A max of 4 residents were allowed for each cabin. Some farm labor families had up to 8, 10, or 12 children which furthered the cost of rent.

On March 30, 1965, the Tulare County Authority announced a scheduled rent increase up to a 47% to go in effect in June, precipitating the rent strike. The rent for he first cabin would've increased to $25 for the first cabin and $10 for each additional cabin.

Following the announcement, Padilla stood on top of a car at the Woodville Farm Labor camp and convinced 300 tenants to rent strike in June, when the rent increase would go into effect.

The rent strike was not only the result of the organizing of Gilbert Padilla and Jim Drake, but also crucially supported by the alliance formed between the NFWA and SNCC in January 1965. After the two organized the strike, finding themselves poorly prepared, they called the San Francisco SNCC office to request the sending of organizers to help, which they did. The coverage of the strike and later march in the SNCC run paper The Movement would be of crucial importance to gain outside support.

Another key leader of the rent strike would emerge at this time; Pablo Espinoza who occasionally was employed by the TCHA to work in the camps, and was part of an extended family that lived in the Woodville camp, became a primary spokesperson for the rent strikers. He conversed a lot with Gilbert Padilla, picking up his politics.

Cancelling the rent increase was not the only goal of the strikers, improving the conditions of the housing was a principal crucial demand by them. The previously described shacks had no solid doors or windows, and no indoor plumbing or sewage. Each of the shacks were equipped with one electric outlet and one gas outlet.

The temperature inside the shacks became inhospitable during daytime. By about eight o'clock in the morning residents could no longer safely stay inside. As a result, the tenants had to cook their lunch before then at dawn, when they still had access to it and couldn't cook dinner until 7:30 to 8:00 pm, after the shacks had cooled down enough. Families would often place old wet blankets and mattresses on top of the shacks in an attempt to keep them cool.Gary Bellow, a lawyer and activist who often represented farm workers from the NFWA, in a 1999 oral history interview described their experience visiting the labor camps:

As the huts had no plumbing, for access to water it had to be carried in five gallon jugs from shared fire hydrants that served 6-7 huts. In addition bathing and toilet facilities were communal, one toilet house existed for each 60 units of housing. The showers were only functional during part of the day, shutting down at 9:30pm every night. The labor camps also lacked sidewalks, causing deep mud during rainfall, making it difficult to access the fire hydrants for water. This aspect is of note, as it played role in inspiring the flood in the ending of The Grapes of Wrath, after the 1938 flood in Tulare County. Both farm labor camps were the kind John Steinbeck had modeled their setting off. A survey of the Woodville hut found 51 out of 55 huts had holes in the roof, walls or both.

Reverend Jim Drake would discover during organizing that the camp's were only built to last ten years and that they had been condemned by the Tulare County Health and Building Departments. Gilbert Padilla, Jim Drake and David Havens would then get legal advice from James Herndon. He advised them to have tenants pay into an escrow account instead of paying directly to TCHA, in order to prevent eviction.

The Tulare Housing Authority responded to residents, claiming that the rent raises were needed to fix the camps. While the residents replied that over the last 10 years, the housing commission a nonprofit by law, had made an excess profit of $130,000 and that the camp didn't need to be fixed, it needed to be completely rebuilt.

On May 21, before the official withholding of rent by residents, 125 people attended the monthly meeting of the Tulare County Housing Authority to protest the proposed rent increase. Showing up before the meeting started with protest signs and picketing outside the meeting place, and then went inside when it started.

Chairman R.D. Dewhirst of the Housing authority, would place blame on the tenants, saying if they had been working instead of attending the meeting they would be making more money then the rent increase at the housing camps would cost them. Gilbert Padilla, would demand for the camp to be turned over to the renters, as Ferris R. Sherman, executive director of the Housing Authority, once claimed the renters could have the camps. Dewhirst claimed in response that it wasn't serious. Jim Drake accused the directors of enabling inhabitable housing to continue in the county by attempting to make it legally acceptable to raise rent in substandard housing.

Strike

Starting on the 1st of June, the day of the scheduled rent increase, 500 to 600 farm workers went on rent strike. They stopped paying rent to the housing authority and instead deposited their rent at the old rate into a local Bank of America account. The strike was organized by the National Farm Workers Association alongside the California Migrant Ministry. Principally Gilbert Padilla of the NFWA and Jim Drake of the Migrant Ministry. The strike featured significant collaboration of farm workers with other groups, such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who heavily publicized the strike in their newspaper The Movement. The American Friends Service Committee would also sponsor college students to help families inside the camps, who themselves would also join the rent strike

Another group that helped the rent strike was the AFSC's Farm Labor Committee. They helped further publicize the strike through entering an agreement with the University of California Santa Cruz to provide students for editing of the newspaper Tenant News.

The Farm Labor Committee also invited Jesse Gray, an organizer of the National Organization of Tenant Rights to visit Tulare. His visit would play an important role in the subsequent creation of the tenants union in Tulare. Jesse Gray had previously led the 1963-1964 New York City rent strikes.

On July 16, the tenants organized a six-mile march from Linnell to Visalia to bring attention to their conditions. A nun led at the front of the march in a white tunic.