The Frank Bardacke Watsonville Canneries Strike Collection
consists of materials collected by Bardacke, one of the founders
of the Watsonville chapter of Teamsters for a Democratic Union
(TDU) and a resident of that community since the early 1970s,
who was actively involved with the support committee for the
striking cannery workers. It is largely comprised of newspaper
clippings, mainly from the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian,
leaflets, and newsletters. Materials date from 1984, the year
before the strike, through 1989, although the vast majority of
the material is from the strike itself (September 1985 to March
1987). Frank Bardacke, one of the founders of the Watsonville
chapter of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), was born in
San Diego in 1941. He earned a Masters Degree from UC Berkeley,
worked for three years in the frozen food industry, and was
teaching adult education at the time of the strike.Watsonville,
a town of nearly 30,000 located in the heart of the agricultural
Salinas Valley, is home