Cesar Chavez Revelations Show It’s Time for Truth and Reconciliation in the Labor Movement

This problem does not end at the U.S. border. Consider what women at the International Transport Federation (ITF) have been going through. The ITF represents 16 million workers in 149 countries; its General Secretary, Steve Cotton has been credibly accused of sexual harassment and bullying spanning more than a decade. An independent report commissioned by the ITF itself described the federation as ​“a masculine, sexist, patriarchal boys’ club.” A staff survey found that nearly half of the women who responded had witnessed or experienced harassment and that only five percent who complained were satisfied with how those complaints were handled. According to my conversations with ITF staff, at least 15 women have left the ITF under suspicious circumstances, with many forced to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). Despite all of this, Cotton remains in his post while the organization convenes yet another committee to conduct yet another investigation.

A genuine reckoning is long overdue.

Chavez’ once-saintly reputation is forever destroyed, but the union doesn’t have to be. For the sake of farmworkers who deserve better, the UFW should take swift, drastic steps to begin repairing its integrity and regaining its footing.

But that is not enough. Unions as a movement must move toward real accountability.

As a first step, unions should release current and former staff members from every NDA that covers sexual harassment, assault, or related conduct. NDAs perpetuate sexual harassment by preventing workers from talking to each other about workplace abuse, which means that patterns remain undetected and abusers can move from one organization to another. Importantly, they force survivors to relive their silencing every time they are tempted to tell their own story, and, perhaps, most harmful, they model for members and staff what the union’s hierarchy values: the reputation of leaders over the safety of workers.

NDAs also chill workers’ statutory rights. As the National Labor Relations Board held in its McClaren Macomb (2023) decision, confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses in severance agreements tend to ​“interfere with, restrain or coerce employees’ exercise of Section 7 rights,” including future concerted activities or Board access.

Several unions have taken strong stances against NDAs in cases of workplace harassment and discrimination. The Daily Beast Union set a new standard in the media industry by successfully negotiating a contract that bans NDAs in cases of both harassment and discrimination. Similarly, the New Yorker Union also secured a ban on NDAs in cases of harassment and discrimination in their first union contract.

Yet, as employers, unions continue to use them extensively. If for no other reason, unions should stop engaging in practices that violate the National Labor Relations Act.

Releasing staff from NDAs means notifying every person who signed one, and the public, that the union will not enforce any agreement with respect to disclosures about sexual harassment or misconduct by leaders or staff, and that the union will not retaliate against anyone who speaks about their experiences. Release from their NDAs has been one of the ITF women’s demands since they began their campaign to hold Steve Cotton accountable. They, along with all other union women who have been silenced, deserve to be heard.

Once survivors are free to speak, the labor movement needs a structure to hear them. One model the labor movement should take seriously, on a global scale, is a truth and reconciliation process similar to those adopted by countries and communities grappling with patterns of harm that institutions failed, or refused, to address. Truth and reconciliation commissions do not seek to punish individuals. They center survivors, build a shared historical record, and hold institutions accountable for the cultures and structures that enabled abuse.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission brought widespread attention to apartheid-era violence and led to reforms in policing, governance and public memory. In Canada, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls documented systemic racism and gendered violence, promoting structural changes in policing, health services, and funding for indigenous-led support programs. These processes don’t eliminate harm overnight, but they create a public record that challenges institutional complacency.

The labor movement has the power to do this work. A few unions are already doing it, as I describe in my book, Solidarity Betrayed. One union I discuss in the book, the Los Angeles janitors’ union, United Service Workers West, has been using all the tools in its toolbox to change the culture in the industry and within the union. All of its work in this area is worker-led and trauma-informed. The union developed a worker-centered peer-to-peer leadership and education approach based on the popular education philosophy of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. The union developed a trauma-informed methodology that relies on community peer educators– promotoras–who go into workplaces to share knowledge and resources with fellow workers to continue the work on the ground. The union modeled the approach on efforts crafted by social justice medical doctors and public health experts in Southern California who trained community members to advance healthy practices within the community. They sealed that model into law in 2019 with the passage of the California Janitor Survivor Empowerment Act, which requires that janitors themselves must conduct the trainings at the employers’ expense.

The union also opened the Ya Basta! Center, which provides promotoras a space to engage with fellow workers, educate them on their legal rights and self-empowerment, and continue training the janitorial community to confront and eradicate sexual harassment on the job.

Graduate students have unionized to tackle sexual harassment on campus. Their workplaces fall under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, a rigid system that concentrates power within the university, their employer. Student workers have won contracts that give them a voice in parts of the process and a meaningful role in establishing supportive measures for survivors.

Clearly, the labor movement has the power to do the work. What it has historically lacked is the willingness to do what it takes to change the systems that enable and perpetuate harassment. Statements are the floor. The ceiling is a movement that actually lives its values, where women who speak up are honored rather than silenced, and where the cause does not become a shield for those who claim to lead it.