UFW targets strawberry
fields
By LESLIE
WIRPSA NCR Staff Salinas, Calif.
Mexican ranchera melodies melted into a Spanish version of
the labor chant We shall not be moved as the United Farm Workers
van set out one afternoon in late April for the offices of strawberry buyers
and brokers.
The vans 11 occupants, including strawberry pickers, union
organizers, a Catholic activist and a university student, were on a mission to
convince these intermediaries of a $600 million agribusiness to attend a
home meeting to hear directly about the conditions endured by
thousands of Mexican and Mexican-American farm laborers who harvest the juicy
red fruit for U.S. consumers.
Ultimately, the UFW wants brokers and buyers to help pressure
Driscoll Strawberry Associates, one of the largest shippers in the strawberry
business, to support neutrality agreements for farm worker union organizations.
Neutrality agreements are measures that, according to the union, would enhance
the chances of organizing berry pickers.
The van excursion was one result of initiatives that have, in the
past year, moved the plight of Californias 20,000 strawberry pickers to
the top of the agendas of labor, religious and community leaders nationwide.
Strawberries are in season not only in this hub of production in Salinas and
Watsonville but also in parishes and community groups nationwide, in the halls
of the U.S. Bishops Conference and in the national headquarters of the
AFL-CIO.
The campaign accelerated following an April 17, 1997, march in
Watsonville of 30,000 workers and supporters. The shutting down of a farm where
workers were attempting to organize also fueled the initiative, which began
officially in 1995.
The campaign has garnered the support of major grocery chains that
have signed a document supporting the rights of strawberry workers. But its
success in organizing the workers is limited to one small organic grower whose
products are available only in California.
On the other side, a spokesman for Driscoll, a major target of the
organizing effort in California, has said that the UFWs organizing
efforts amount to intimidation. The company also claims that the union is
misleading Catholics into supporting the perceived
downtrodden..
Consumers, meanwhile, are unlikely to find union strawberries
outside of California. Union organizers said they are not advocating a boycott
of California strawberries at this point but are encouraging consumers to
notify growers and distributors to allow union organizing activities.
Ushered back outside
At the produce brokerage firm of Blazer and Wilkinson on the
outskirts of Salinas, the UFW van pulled into a parking space across the lot
from high-priced RVs and imports. The group disembarked and entered the
brokerage office, but was immediately ushered back outside. Within minutes,
company partner Scott Blazer emerged to talk with the group.
The exchange was amicable. The workers and activists spoke their
minds, describing such general concerns as the intimidation of workers who
attempted to organize unions, the absence of wage hikes during the past decade,
job insecurity and problems with care for injured workers.
Blazer, who expressed interest but remained noncommittal, said he
would consider the home visit proposal.
Following this and two other stops, strawberry picker Carmen
Guerrero said, They listened to us. And UFW organizer Matt Smith
said he thought executives at Driscoll Strawberry Associates would soon hear
about the visits.
Much of the encouragement for the workers and organizers has come
from religious quarters and particularly the Catholic church. On March 30, the
U.S. bishops issued a statement urging justice for strawberry workers. The plea
underlined efforts by those who toil in these strawberry fields to
organize to secure better working conditions, better wages, and a better
life for themselves and their families.
The national statement echoed an earlier one from Bishop Sylvester
Ryan of the Monterey, Calif., diocese, which includes the Salinas and
Watsonville centers of California strawberry production. Ryan pointed out that
workers experience working conditions that violate both our state laws
and all fundamental human rights, oftentimes to the extreme. He said some
employers and growers consistently violate the rights of workers in the
worst possible way in an industry that is extremely labor
intensive and where workers have been especially vulnerable and
subject to an entire array of abuses.
The bishops, in their national statement, acknowledged decent
treatment of workers by a few strawberry growers.
Reiterating church teachings on the right of workers to form and
join unions, the bishops declared that the vast majority of seasonal workers
deserve redress.
Sal Alvarez has worked in the farm labor movement for 32 years,
since the earliest actions of UFW President and founder Cesar Chavez. A
Catholic deacon in San Jose and director of the Interfaith Support Committee
for Santa Clara and other northern California counties, Alvarez said this kind
of support from Catholic and other religious leaders on the strawberry issue is
symbolic of a nationwide resurgence of a coalition between church and
labor.
32-year supporter
Fr. Eugene Boyle, a diocesan priest from San Jose and a 32-year
supporter of farm workers, said the strawberry initiative and similar actions,
like the earlier grape boycott, represent social justice efforts about
which the church doesnt have to hang its head. Boyle also said the
wide support represents a general rise in success in the unionization of
agricultural workers since Chavezs death five years ago on April 27.
UFW spokesman Marc Grossman said since 1994 the organization has
won 15 straight union elections and signed 17 new contracts in sectors such as
roses, mushrooms, wine, grapes, lettuce and other vegetables. Overall union
membership, he said, which dipped to 21,000 in 1994 from an early 1970s peak of
80,000, has risen to 26,000. On April 21, the UFW signed its first strawberry
contract with Santa Cruz Countys Swanton Berry Farms, a small organic
grower. The agreement covers wages, job security and benefits for 40 to 50
workers.
As a result, quarts and pints of Swanton berries will be the first
in California supermarkets to bear the UFW eagle trademark. UFW organizers also
convinced Coastal Berry Farms, the third largest grower in California, to adopt
a neutrality agreement on union organizing.
The UFW is requesting that growers and Driscoll, as an industry
leader, sign a public pledge to remain neutral while organizing occurs.
According to a UFW flyer, strawberry workers have voted for
the UFW union in state-held, secret-ballot elections, most recently in 1989,
1994 and 1995. Companies responded by firing pickers, plowing under
strawberries and selectively shutting down operations.
According to the flyer, 87 percent of more than 400 strawberry
workers at one group of farms in Salinas voted for the UFW in August 1995. The
following week, the farm plowed under 25 percent of the strawberries. The
next month the company shut down and abandoned the workers.
The flyer said shutdowns also occurred following the 1989 and 1994
pro-UFW votes.
Strawberry pickers are seasonal workers. They work between seven
and nine months of the year, earning an average of $8,500 for physically taxing
work. Boyle said of the organizing resurgence: It is as if Cesars
spirit has been unleashed in the workers and in the organizing work of
leaders like Chavezs son-in-law and UFW President Arturo Rodriguez and
Secretary-Treasurer and cofounder Dolores Huerta.
Important daily tasks
According to UFW community organizer Cruz Phillips, union
initiatives on the strawberry issue spurred a response from broad-based
community committees that carry on the daily tasks of meeting with workers,
leafleting supermarkets, visiting growers, writing petitions and conducting
actions around workplace issues.
Such local efforts and pressure from religious leadership combined
to raise awareness at the point where strawberries meet consumers -- the
nations supermarkets. Since December 1996, the top four and number seven
on the list of the largest U.S. grocery chains -- Kroger, Safeway, American
Stores (Lucky, Acme and Jewel), Yucaipa (Ralphs and Dominicks) and A
& P -- have signed public statements supporting strawberry workers
rights.
The signings culminated a campaign of petitions, leafleting and
expressions of support from nearly every religious leader in California, said
Phillips. Among those signing letters asking Lucky stores to come on board were
Los Angeles regional Catholic Bishops Stephen Blaire and Gabino Zavala,
Methodist Bishop Roy Sano, Episcopal Bishop Fred Borsch, President of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis Richard Levi, the Rev. Robert Mathias of
the Lutheran Synod of Northern California and the Rev. Phillip Young of the
Presbyterian Synod of the Pacific.
Its a really powerful group of people who signed on to
the letters to Lucky, Phillips said. Then what really does it are
the numbers of people who come out. You can have all the religious leaders you
can get, but you have to have at the same time members of the social justice
committees to leaflet at the stores and send letters.
Phillips said the long-term goal of initiatives like the
strawberry organizing, in addition to security for workers, is to create more
stable, healthy communities. Thus, the campaign also addresses issues like
water sustainability and use of pesticides like captan and methyl bromide.
National Catholic Reporter, May 15,
1998
|