Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement, By Marshall Ganz, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 368 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-516201-1.

Precarious employment and California agribusiness have a long and checkered history together. Despite the efforts of the state’s labour movement over the first half of the twentieth century to improve the working conditions of farm workers, successes were few and far between. In the 1960’s, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW) succeeded where many others had failed. At Chavez’s side in this fight for union recognition, or La Causa as it was known, was Marshall Ganz. As an author, Ganz draws on his experience as an insider to provide an insightful account of how grassroots organizing can better the odds of achieving its objectives. The author begins with a straightforward research question to frame his analysis: what were the essential elements of the UFW’s success? This first chapter then turns to an overview of the analytical framework Ganz has built to respond to his question. He argues that turning opportunity into the desired outcome was dependant upon three key processes: the motivation of the union leadership to actually address the concerns of those they purported to represent; the breadth of access to diverse sources of information and resources and finally; organizational flexibility that adapts to change and learns from its mistakes. According to the author, the degree to which these behaviours, or strategic capacity are present in a social movement is positively related to the achievement of its objectives. To support this hypothesis, Ganz compares the actions of the UFW with those of its rival unions. In the next two chapters, the author explains how the UFW succeeded at representing itself as the only long-term solution to the plight of farm workers. In the first half of the twentieth century, radical elements within the labour movement were among the few to try to organize farm labour. Recalcitrant employers often countered by allowing the mainstream labour movement to organize packing and canning workers. Meanwhile, legislative exceptionalism that impeded the majority of farm workers from forming unions, alongside State support of the Bracero programme of temporary labour from Mexico, tended to strengthen the employer’s hand. In the 1950’s, a nascent organization, which would become the UFW, focused on specifically improving the lives of a labour force composed, by this time, mostly of recent immigrants. This narrative of events serves as the cornerstone of the author’s argument that the UFW’s growth was due in part to its ability to remain single-mindedly accountable to farm workers. In chapters four, five and six, Ganz fleshes out his strategic capacity theory, linking the UFW’s accountability advantage to the strength of its weak ties and its organizational flexibility. A window of opportunity opened with the end of the Bracero programme. Faced with limited financial resources, the UFW used fieldworkers as union organizers, some of whom became part of the leadership team. This maintained lines of communication with the base and legitimated union objectives among existing and potential membership. In likening his cause to that of contemporary civil rights and anti poverty movements, Chavez also reached out to city dwellers. Civil disobedience, high profile marches and consumer boycotts became on-the-job training for participation in a social movement that had to constantly adapt to serve an increasingly heterogeneous constituency. The volunteer social activists that were attracted to La Causa allowed the UFW to avoid being beholden to any financial benefactor, a necessary condition for organizational flexibility. At the same time, the UFW gained access to a broad cross section of individuals with a wealth of ideas to contribute. David’s victories versus Goliath turned out to be bittersweet. Strategic strikes, often at harvest time, were used to extract …