© Vincenzo Aiosa
The organization grew out of the Eastern Farm Workers Association in Suffolk County, New York, founded in 1972 by Gino Perente and others. Perente had worked at the New York office of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in 1971 or 1972 and, according to Dolores Huerta, “…created a lot of problems for the union, attacking us in the press. Then he went off and formed his own group….NATLFED operates about thirty offices, called entities around the US, with concentrations in California and the Northeast. The Eastern Farm Workers Association (now in Bellport, New York and Syracuse, New York) and California Homemakers Association (in Sacramento, California) were founded in the early seventies, and were followed by Eastern Service Workers Association, Western Service Workers Association, the Commemoration Committee for the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, Western Massachusetts Labor Action in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Western Farm Workers Association in Stockton, California, Yuba City, California, and Hillsboro, Oregon, Friends of Seasonal and Service Workers in Portland, Oregon and Northwest Seasonal Workers Association in Medford, Oregon.” – Wikipedia
