Tribute to a Valiant Teacher: Bert Corona

by Alex Garza
CSEA/SEIU Local 1000 (state workers)
Sacramento, California

Brothers and Sisters, Hermanos y Hermanas:

A great labor organizer and community leader passed away Monday, he is Bert Corona. To many Mexican-American communities and Chicano Mexicano activists, Bert served as the quinessential activist role model -- constantly engaged with the grassroots people in the barrios, in the factories and sweatshops, organizing and encouraging in both languages, that the power of change is in their hands. "El Senor", as many of us called him out of respect, was based in Los Angeles, yet his organizing efforts at one point through Centro de Accion Social Autonomo (CASA Hermandad General de Trabajadores) led to the creation of organizing service centers in a dozen major cities in the country. Countless organizing drives and collective bargaining agreements won by the poorest of the working class can be traced to Bert Corona's unwavering faith en el pueblo, in the people. There are services, including a wake and a march in Los Angeles on Saturday, January 20, 2001. The details are below, as well as a fitting tribute by one of his colleagues, Nativo Lopez. I was proud to serve with Bert Corona in the early 70s when we organized in Santa Ana and throughout Orange County in the CASA center. The Centro in Santa Ana helped create much-needed change and hundreds of families in the area owe Bert acknowledgement for inspiring the young and teaching the veterans that it is never too late to unite and fight for your rights. Bert also stressed that uniting with the poor of any race or background was a duty wherever workers were targetted by an unsavory boss.

I owe a lot to Bert and his down-to-earth teaching methods, that to this day I use in my work in the labor and civil rights movement. How fitting it would be if an organizing and worker justice institute were to be opened in every union where we, who worked with Bert, continue to organize around one of his favorite demands, "Un Dano Contra Uno es Un Dano Contra Todos" --An Injury Against One is An Injury Against All.

!Viva Bert Corona, Viva La Causa, Siempre!