NFWA and AWOC set up a system of roving pickets, with different fields picketed each day. Fifteen or twenty cars full of pickets would go to a field where a grower was attempting to use strikebreakers. Striking workers, often harassed by the growers and police, sometimes violently, would try to get the scabs to leave the fields. Remarkably, their appeals were successful much of the time in emptying the ranches of workers, who were persuaded it was in their interest to strike.

The growers, overconfident, made a mistake almost immediately. They had always been able to end strikes with small wage concessions. Soon after the strike began they raised wages to $1.40 per hour. But this time they were shocked to discover it wasn’t enough. The raise merely encouraged the strikers to believe they were being effective. Now there had to be a union contract, too.