NICK JONES 1942-2026

Nick Jones changed the way the labor movement conducted business in the latter half of the 20th century. Before he came along, unions were mostly found in big factories or the construction world. After the boycotts were over, these new organizers fanned out into organized labor, and turned it into a real movement.

Some union executives were afraid to hire new, exuberant women and people of color, but most union officials realized that they were losing members and needed to boost the membership. The fruit of Nick’s boycott strategy spread throughout labor and gave it a second wind.

Nick opened the door to the unskilled and unemployed, letting them join the labor movement. Nick brought in 300 boycott organizers, many of whom were getting their first experience with the labor movement.

He did this by starting the biggest labor boycott ever. For many people, their first real look at unions, justice, poverty, or better lives for farmworkers was thanks to Nick Jones.

It was the first time that millions of working people considered not using grapes or lettuce, or drinking Gallo wine because workers they didn’t even know suffered from intolerable conditions.

Nick had grown up in Fargo, North Dakota. His father had been a union carpenter who was proud that he had never crossed a picket line. Nick enrolled at North Dakota State University with a four-year ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) scholarship. He soon joined the millions of young people who opposed the war in Viet Nam. Because of the conflict between his personal anti-war beliefs and his connection with the ROTC, Nick dropped out of college and traveled to Chicago,where he joined SDS (Students for a Democratic Society).

There was a military draft at this time, and they soon caught up with Nick. However, Nick was able to win conscientious objector status. He set off again. This time to Delano, California where he was recruited by the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which soon changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union. The union assigned him to Seattle to work on the boycott. This is where he met and married Virginia Rodriguez, who was a member of one of the original 1965 farm worker families strike. Virginia had been working as an administrative secretary to Cesar Chavez. Nick’s boycott work impressed the UFW leadership, but the union’s budget prevented his being hired. One of the union’s leaders, Chris Hartmire got around this by putting Nick on payroll as a “migrant priest,” and Nick carried on his boycott work.

In 1968, Chavez began a well-known fast at union headquarters, known as Forty Acres. Nick and Virginia were some of the first supporters to realize that Chavez was unprotected. They began guarding him night and day. After the strike Nick became Chavez’s first bodyguard. He would stay outside Chavez’s house in Delano, armed with a shotgun. Nick recruited a crew of bodyguards who took turns, shotgun in hand, protecting Chavez, and his wife, Helen. Chavez was known for his non-violence, but many of his supporters were ready to die for their leader.

The majority of Nick’s time with the farm workers was on the boycott. In the beginning, Nick and Cesar traveled together from town to town speaking in churches and union halls, and visiting the boycott picket lines at grocery stores (mostly Safeways), urging consumers not to buy grapes, which were the first major boycott target. Under Nick’s leadership as National Boycott Director, consumers refused to buy the produce that the union was protesting. By 1976, Nick had assembled 300 boycott organizers spread out in nearly every major city in the U.S. and Canada.

Cesar’s Paranoia Results in Firings

Also in 1976, Chavez became more and more paranoid that some of the staff were trying to destroy the union. A number of staff were fired, without cause, but only because Cesar was paranoid. Finally, Chavez focused on Nick and Virginia. By that time, each of them had been with the union for 10 years. By 1976, no one dared disagree with Chavez.

Proposition 14 would have given farm workers more rights and would have strengthened the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections and violations of labor law. There were several people in the UFW who did not think the Proposition would pass, although Chavez was strongly in favor of it. In fact, it failed by a margin of 2-1. Among those who did not think it would win were Nick and Virginia. They were attacked for not mobilizing the boycott workers for the election campaign.

Another issue for Cesar, who was strongly Catholic and anti-Communist was the politics of the boycott workers,who were mostly radical and non-religious. Chavez began attacking boycott workers for being Communists or leftist, although there was no evidence to substantiate the allegation. In any case, Nick and Virginia were put in an untenable position. They resolved it by submitting their resignations.

Their letter to Cesar cited “mistrust, and baseless accusations against staff, and a toxic atmosphere of innuendo without evidence.”

Cesar’s response accused Jones of harboring or enabling “leftists”/disruptors and being naive or complicit.

The loss of Nick and Virginia caused a major rupture in the union that made the front page of the Los Angeles Times. Someone had given the paper a letter of resignation from Nick and Virginia, without the knowledge of the Jones or the UFW. The Times headline read, “UFW Aide Quits, Alleges Chavez Anti-leftist Bias.” Actually, Nick and Virginia avoided the topic of leftism in the letter which focused on the arbitrary treatment, including hiring and firing, meted out to boycott staff. Cesar complained about staff laziness. The UFW spokesperson flatly denied politics had been involved, “There was no purge of leftists.” No one dared disagree with Cesar, which was at the heart of the union.

The boycott work carried on after Nick left, but it never soared to the heights that it reached under Nick’s guidance. Chavez’ paranoia continued to grow as he became more involved in Chuck Dederich’s Synanon cult, which developed into an alternative community centered on group truth-telling sessions that came to be known as the “Synanon Game”, a form of attack therapy. It was said to be one of the “most dangerous and violent cults” America had ever seen.

Nick left the UFW in 1976. Cesar Chavez continued as president until he died in 1993. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, Arturo Rodriguez, in 1993. Rodriguez, in turn, was followed, in 2018, by current president, Teresa Romero.

Chicago, A Union Called Sweetheart, and the Mafia

The union at the Sweetheart Cup factories around Chicago were in deep trouble. They didn’t have a leader, and they were besieged by nothing less than the Crime Syndicate.

Fortunately, their efforts to find someone to lead them out of this mess led them to Nick Jones. The Executive Board liked Nick’s style and quickly voted him in as President of the Chicago Joint Board of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The Joint Board was made up of several local unions, all working for Sweetheart and boasting at least 1,000 members.

The RWDSU had been founded in 1937 and was part of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). This was a time when everyone seemed to be joining unions. Even the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, urged workers to join a union. But by the 1980s, when Nick showed up, unions had become a tough sell. Nick quickly got the union in order. The Executive Board met regularly and the members got used to seeing Nick walking through the plant and taking care of their grievances.

But there were problems with the mob who wanted to take over the union. They paid off workers to get them to sign a petition to vote for their paperworkers union. During the campaign to save the union, the RWDSU called a mass meeting, with Charlie Hayes, a Congressman who had previously been a reform member of the AFL-CIO. Hayes had been a colleague of Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Struggle. There was a bomb threat which made it impossible to hold the mass meeting. There was no doubt who threatened to plant the bomb. It was the Crime Syndicate. Nick was unfazed by the threat of violence, and redoubled his efforts to win the election.

Nick, and his union team, of course won the election. The Mafia found out the hard way that unions are not theirs for the taking. At least, the union led by Nick Jones was no easy pickings.

Another Union in Trouble

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 250, in California’s Bay Area, was descending into chaos when Nick joined it. He had returned to his home to be closer to friends and his daughter, Raquel.

In the mid-80s, there was probably no union with 28,000 members seething with more unrest than the health care union. It had been ruled without democracy for 15 years by Tim Twomey, the son-in-law of the former international president. His rule began to come apart with the tentative negotiation of a contract that was unacceptable to the rank-and-file. Local 250 was the international’s largest union, but it had no credible leadership.

Workers refused to accept a two-tier wage plan and instead voted down the proposed contract. They then went on a disastrous strike. When the strike failed, workers were forced to negotiate department by department. At this time, two capable leaders emerged, Sal Roselli and Shirley Ware. They were able to repair much of the damage to working conditions, while refusing to agree to any two-tier wage plans.

It was the end of the old regime. Enter the Trusteeship, which was imposed by the international president, John Sweeney. In place of Twomey came Trustee Phil Giarrizzo. He stabilized the union and was well received – for a while. If you compare union politics with political politics, then Twomey is the authoritarian, Giarrizzo is a moderate. In fact, he was one of a group of “moderates” who got their experience from SEIU Local 715 in the San Jose area. Together with Bob Muscat, John Tanner , and a few others, they began fanning out to unions around the country, whose workers and what they did, was alien to them.

The newly formed New Leadership caucus consisting of Sal, Shirley, Charlie Ridgel, Nick and many more rebels in the ranks sent an open letter to the union heads back in Washington, DC. They said of the Trustee, “he got into screaming arguments with members who dared to disagree with him. He threatened and fired staff who refused to support his (upcoming) campaign for President. He turned official Union meetings into recruitment drives for volunteers for his campaign.” There was also a meeting where members were demanding his resignation when he turned his back on them and refused to look at his critics.

Giarrizzo was called to Washington for “consultations,” during which he was asked for his resignation; in other words, he was fired. Unfortunately, the Trusteeship had caused a lot of damage to the ailing union. Both Nick Jones and Sal Roselli were fired. This might seem like an irreparable blow to the union democracy movement, but, on the contrary, it gave them more time to organize. Both Nick and Sal were restored to their jobs.

They won their jobs back when thousands signed on to the New Leadership caucus. The leaders held nominations and elections and were nearly 100 percent successful. Later, they left SEIU and became the militant, independent union that the workers wanted. It was renamed the United Health Care Workers West. Years later, they negotiated a new affiliation with SEIU in which they maintained their name and their democratic union.

Another job well done, Nick. Time to retire. Nick had a great retirement traveling the world, spending time in Italy, Turkey and other parts of Europe, South East Asia and the Pacific Islands, before settling for at least part of every year in the Philippines and the remainder in Richmond, California. Wherever he was, Nick never forgot the struggle for justice, freedom and dignity. He went out of his way to actively support movements that needed his help.

He is survived by his wife, Tonette Garcia, daughter Raquel. and son, Martín. A memorial will be held in the Bay Area at a time not yet set. Left Coast News <leftcoast.substack.com> will post the information, below the latest article, as soon as we have it.

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