REBECCA FLORES

1943 -

Rebecca Flores elevated “LA Causa” – the quest for dignity for farm workers in Texas – and made gains in the toughest of circumstances. 

Magnifying the example of United Farm Workers co-founders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and with little in the way of financial resources, Flores helped the union maintain an outsized footprint as State Director starting in 1975, leading initiatives to improve pay and working conditions. A former migrant farmworker herself, Flores drew strength from the farmworkers in Rio Grande City who, in the mid-1960s, famously – and at the risk of life and limb – launched a strike and later marched hundreds of miles to the Capitol (with Texas AFL-CIO support) to seek a minimum wage. 

Organizing was at its toughest as Flores worked to catch up with seasonal migrant workers, leading countless door-to-door stops in colonias and navigating other structural hurdles. Workers had no toilets in the field, no drinking water or washing facilities, tools that required back-breaking stooping, and virtually none of the workplace rights most Texas workers take for granted. Flores fought for change in the Rio Grande Valley and at the Capitol in Austin and Washington, D.C., helping make farmworkers’ lives better.

Flores later worked as a regional representative for the national AFL-CIO, incorporating her advocacy for the working poor and immigrants. She played a leading role in organizing a 50-year commemoration of the farmworkers’ march to the Texas Capitol. She continues her lifelong advocacy for women’s rights and other progressive causes.