November and December, 1952, 1952

The October meeting of the National Executive Board decided on several drastic changes in the union's operations, among them the closing down of the NAWU office in Fresno, California and the firing of Fresno organizer William Swearingen, who had allegedly permitted Communists to join his local. The papers for November and December are full of long, philosophical letters between Mitchell and his key organizers (Galarza, Hasiwar, and Becker) on the shake-up and on the NAWU's future strategy. There is also a set of notes by Galarza setting forth the pros and cons of the Department of Labor's plan to fix the prevailing wages of braceros (Nov. 19) and his five-page statement on the practice of deducting the cost of tie-wires (Twistems) from the wages of carrot tiers (Dec. 5). Finally, the union filed claims with the Department of Agriculture for the unpaid wages of 392 Louisiana sugar cane workers; see two letters from Hank Hasiwar to the Department (Nov. 3,6) and a NAWU press release on this subject (Dec 17). The Department's reply appears on April 10, 1953