Solidarity means showing up, even when it’s hard

By Fabrizio Sasso
Executive Director, Sacramento CLC

The Sacramento Central Labor Council stands with Dolores Huerta and the women who have spoken out about César Chávez. That’s such a simple and critical statement, but the pain behind it for the survivors and for every member of labor who idolized Chávez is real.

Chávez has been an icon. His image is on murals. His name is on holidays. For a lot of people in this movement, he seemed like the kind of dedicated hero we aspire to be.

But the labor movement has never been about heroes. It has never been about any one person. It is about people. All of them. The farmworkers in the fields. The women who were assaulted and silenced. The organizers who gave everything to build something bigger than themselves. The movement belongs to them. It always has and it always will.

When Huerta and other women came forward with the truth about what they experienced with Chávez, we had a choice. We could protect the icon, or we could protect the people. The Sacramento Central Labor Council chose the people. That is what we are supposed to do.

Here is the thing about solidarity. It only works if people trust it. If workers believe that the movement will stand up for them when it matters, they show up. They fight. They take risks. But if that trust gets broken, if they see that we only stand with survivors and the vulnerable when it is convenient, when it does not cost us anything, that trust dies. Accountability is not just the right thing to do. It is how we keep the movement alive. It is how solidarity works.

Renaming a holiday is a start. But it is not enough. Farmworkers are still fighting—all workers are still fighting in this critical moment in America when Donald Trump and his cronies are using their power to smash the rights and the dreams of regular people.

Despite legislative changes in recent years that made card check campaigns possible for farmworkers, organizing in the fields is still brutal work. These workers are still facing some of the worst conditions in the country and are vulnerable to the terror and incarceration that has become the American immigration system. They deserve our full support. Not just our sympathy in a press release. Real, sustained, show-up-every-day support.

At its core, the labor movement is about building a better world. Fair wages. Safe workplaces. Housing that people can afford, health care for all. It is about communities where everyone is treated with dignity, whether they carry a union card or not. That vision only holds together if we are honest with ourselves about when we fall short of it and take swift action to fix what we get wrong.

The women who came forward are brave. Speaking truth when the truth is painful and complicated takes real courage. The values we fight for everyday demand that we believe them and stand with them. And we do.

This moment is hard. Grief and accountability are not easy to hold at the same time. We can honor what the farmworker movement built while also being honest about the harm that was done inside it. Those two things are not opposites. Holding both is what integrity looks like.

The labor movement has always been about the people who do the work and take the risks. Right now, that means standing with survivors. It means standing with farmworkers. It means doing the hard thing because it is the right thing.

That is what we do. That is who we are.