United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez issued the following statement today (June 4, 2009) from the union's La Paz, Keene, Calif. headquarters on the passing of California labor leader Jack Henning:

Today the American labor movement and the state of California lost a genuine champion of working people, and especially farm workers.

No one inside or outside the California labor movement more consistently or selflessly championed the farm workers' cause over as many decades than Jack Henning.

No one loved and respected Cesar Chavez more. Jack never wavered, whether it was standing with the United Farm Workers on picketlines in the dusty fields and vineyards or in the halls of the state Capitol. From the 1960s to the 1990s, he rallied  the entire labor movement to support the UFW during strikes, boycotts,  legislative and political battles.  Jack Henning played a critical role in realizing the era's most  important advances for  all working families. He understood the labor movement could never be true to itself if it ignored the poorest of the poor, the men, women and children who work in the fields.   

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