09/07/2025 UFW mourns the passing of John Burton, champion of the farm worker movement

John L. Burton, an unabashed champion of countless poor people's causes over a lifelong-including the United Farm Workers-has passed away in San Francisco at age 92. From marching to the state Capitol with Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the original peregrinos in 1966 to helping the UFW enact legislation as the Capitol's most powerful lawmaker in 2002, John Burton "cared a lot," said his daughter Kimiko Burton. "There are literally millions of people whose lives he helped." A compromise between the UFW and then-Gov. Gray Davis was forged on the last night of the 2002 legislative session so farm workers could use mandatory mediation to win union contracts when growers wouldn't negotiate them. Burton helped the union get the bill through both houses of the Legislature in the last three hours of the session, personally walking the measure through the process in the state Senate that he led. He was a towering figure in California politics-and for the state's poorest and most abused people.

Photo shows John Burton, his grandson on his shoulders, marching on Aug. 25, 2002, the last day of the UFW's 10-day, 160-mile march during the summer heat led by then-UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez that helped win passage of the farm workers' mandatory mediation law. UFW Photo by Jocelyn Sherman