A lot of people don’t know that. While he was clearly a union guy, he was adamantly against illegal immigration and even let protests against it.
Ultimately, his effort to unionize the field workers, provide them with a safer work environment and better wages failed. The agriculture industry was able to import the greatest influx of illegal immigration during the 70s and 80s and wiped Chavez and crew off the map.
Have you ever seen where he called home in CA? It looked like a plantation. He lived in a huge "main" house. Gorgeous. However, the shacks that surrounded it were hovels. That's where the workers lived. He charged a huge amount (for that time) for "union dues", money that the workers could no longer send to their families.
I am in no way for illegal immigration but please do not say that Chavez did anything to benefit the migrant workers. That is the myth that now is presented as fact. He forced them to join his union by beating them up, threatening them, blocking their way into the fields, and following them at the end of the day to where their wives and daughters were.