Imperial Valley lettuce strike of 1930
| Imperial Valley lettuce strike of 1930 | |||
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| Date | January 1–23, 1930 | ||
| Location | Imperial Valley, California, United States | ||
| Caused by | Low wages, wage theft by labor contractors, poor working conditions | ||
| Goals | $0.50/hour wage, eight-hour workday with overtime pay, minimum four-hour guarantee, end to racial discrimination | ||
| Methods | Strike action, picketing | ||
| Resulted in | Defeat for strikers; no demands met; organizers arrested and imprisoned | ||
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The Imperial Valley lettuce strike of 1930 was a strike by agricultural workers against lettuce growers in California's Imperial Valley. Beginning on January 1, 1930, Mexican and Filipino lettuce pickers in Brawley walked off their jobs in a spontaneous protest against declining wages and poor working conditions. Within a week, roughly 5,000 workers across the valley had joined the strike, making it one of the largest farmworker actions in California up to that time. The strike ended on January 23 without any of the workers' demands being met, following police raids on organizers and internal divisions among the strike's leadership.
Although the strike itself was a defeat, historians have characterized it as a pivotal moment in California farm labor history. It was the first major multiethnic farmworker strike in the Imperial Valley and helped launch a decade of agricultural labor militancy across the state.