Agriculture Reference
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industry to tap into the power of a well-funded and politically connected
statewide organization. A third organization, the Citizens' Association of
the Salinas Valley (CASV), was created as a local umbrella organization for
other people and associations to support the growers' antiunion activities,
especially the Monterey County Chamber of Commerce and the American
Legion.
Although organization, through GSVA, had always been a key part of
Salinas Valley vegetable growers' success, this tripartite grouping of GSVA,
MCAF, and CASV allowed them to plan and organize in a way that con-
solidated local power and linked them to statewide sources of fi nancial,
organizational, and police power. For example, through affi liation with the
larger Associated Farmers membership in California, Salinas Valley growers
were connected to the money of fi nancial institutions and the commen-
surate political infl uence to support antilabor bills in the California legis-
lature. In addition, locally, GSVA's control over the vegetable industry
allowed the most antiunion growers to pressure more sympathetic voices
to resist labor organization at all costs. In the months prior to the strike,
the minutes of GSVA's executive committee meetings show marked reluc-
tance on the part of a subset of growers to resist unionization. Just before
the strike began, in early September, growers were still divided over the
best course of action to take. Some, like Bruce Church, one of the largest
lettuce growers in the valley, favored negotiations with the union, admit-
ting that wages should be raised slightly and that growers should not
actively encourage a violent confrontation with the packing shed workers.
Other members, however, such as Walter Farley of the Farley Fruit
Company, were much more strident in their calls for resistance, claiming
that the “issue is Communism” and that the growers should not “lie down
before revolutionists.” 9 Church's position remained a minority viewpoint,
and the larger GSVA membership successfully forced dissenting voices to
join the path of extreme resistance, using the threat of dismissal from the
organization as a stick. 10
The third organization, the Citizens' Association, also consolidated local
power. CASV was intended to appear as a community-wide coalition of
citizens supporting law and order as well as the common interests of
employees and employers in Monterey County. Through CASV, growers
hoped to shift the public's perception of the labor confl ict from grower-
versus-labor to a more dramatic and frightening scenario of a vulnerable
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