
Watsonville, California is part of the Salinas Valley, Americas salad bowl, and some of the most fertile land in this country. Watsonville served as home to canneries that produced most of the frozen food products sold in the United States. In 1985, nearly half the towns 4,000 cannery workers went on strike. The strike was remarkable for a number of reasons. The workers were mostly women of Mexican heritage, many single mothers. For eighteen months, no striking worker crossed the picket line, forcing the canning owners to hire unskilled labor. As one of the companies teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, the workers won an agreement. Producer Reese Ehrlich tells the story of the Watsonville Strike, with interviews from some of the original participants.
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