Conference on Gender, Families,
and Latino Immigration in Oregon

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Ramón Ramírez

PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste/Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United) and CAUSA (Coalicion Pro-inmigrante de Oregon/Oregon’s Immigrants Rights Coalition)

In 1985, Ramón Ramírez helped found a history-making farmworkers union that has grown from 80 to 5,000 members.

Ramón Ramírez was born and raised in East Los Angeles. Inspired by the work of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, he became active in the Chicano movement’s opposition to the Vietnam War at the age of 15 and later joined the Chicano and farmworker movements.Convinced that farmworker conditions would improve only when farmworkers themselves had a genuine role in their workplace and their communities, Ramírez co-founded PCUN with Cipriano Ferrel, who served as the union’s president until his sudden death in 1995. Ramírez was then asked to take Ferrel’s place. In 1998 he signed collective bargaining contracts with three different growers—a first in the state’s agricultural history. Since then, Ramírez has addressed hundreds of unions, religious congregations, and student and community groups, promoting PCUN’s international boycotts.

Through his leadership, the FHDC (Farmworker Housing Development Corporation) has built 108 units of affordable housing and has has completed construction of the Cipriano Ferrel Education Center, which will provide a Head Start and multi-purpose education facility for FHDC's Nuevo Amanecer project residents and Woodburn's Latino Community. He has also worked to develop a strong immigrant rights coalition, which has defeated anti-immigrant and anti-affirmative action proposals in the Oregon State Legislature. Using organizing and education, PCUN has re-framed the public policy debate on farmworker conditions for the 21st Century. Ramon Ramirez received one of the Ford Foundations “Leadership for a Changing World” Awards in 2003.