Unions have been instrumental in the lives of workers throughout American history and have led to major advances in the American workforce. Throughout history there have been patterns of exploitation of immigrant workers by businesses in order to increase profits; Southern California's Mexican migrant workers are the most recent historical group to fall into this pattern of exploitation, primarily due to their lack of organization. Cesar E. Chavez was a great organizer and leader of the United Farm Workers union. Robert Kennedy called him "one of the heroic figures of our time". Chavez used his life experiences to improve the lives of many migrant workers in America. Key points in Chavez's life that had profound effects on Mexican-American workers include such things as: his first taste of leadership in political organizations in 1952; the founding of the United Farm Workers of America in 1962; and the use of nonviolent approaches such as boycotts, strikes, and fasts, as seen in the grape and lettuce strikes. Throughout his career his selfless exploits made him the hero he is now seen as. When you examine these key parts of Chavez's life, you can see that he played a very important role in winning and advocating for civil rights, wage increases, and worker benefits for migrant farmers (Chavez Foundation). In 1952 Chavez began his career as a community leader and political organizer through the Community Service Organization or CSO, which had already been established as a major Mexican-American civil rights organization in Southern California. The CSO worked primarily with voter registration and the day-to-day problems that Mexican Americans would encounter, and this served as a valuable lesson…middle of the paper…figured out what was right and tried to meet the need that had been left behind by government and the private sector. Works Cited Chavez Foundation. “Cesar E. Chavez > American Hero.” http://www.chavezfoundation.org/_page.php?code=001001000000000&page_ttl=American+Hero&kind=1.Griswold Del Castillo, Richard and Richard A. Garcia. César Chavez: a triumph of the spirit. Western biographies of Oklahoma, see 2. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995Martin, Philip. “Labor Relations in California Agriculture: 1975-2000.” September 20, 2000. http://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/more.php?id=44_0_2_0.Moore, Joan W., Cuellar, Alfredo. Mexican America. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc 1970. Tejada-Flores, Rick. “Fight in the fields: Cesar Chávez and the peasants' struggle”. 2004. http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fightfields/cesarchavez.html.