Perente and his followers headed to migrant labor camps in rural Long Island, New York from an office in Bellport, New York in 1972 to organize agricultural workers. The EFWA received press attention in its early days attempting to organize farm workers at the I.M. Young company. Perente organized 800 farm workers with 30 full-time EFWA staff and 70 volunteers in December 1972, when the EFWA led a strike of potato workers. This was the first union of agricultural workers on the East Coast; nonetheless, the Department of Labor determined that EFWA was not a labor organization as defined by federal law.