Rural Laws: April, 2002 - Number #7

The UFW, celebrating its 40th birthday in 2002, operates its own health care (Robert F Kennedy) and pension (Juan De La Cruz) programs. Under many of its 1970s and 1980s contracts, employers contributed to these funds for each hour that workers under UFW contract worked on their farms, for instance, $0.03 an hour in 1968, and $0.05 to $0.25 an hour in 2002. The UFW administered the health care and pension plans, paying benefits to or on behalf of the covered workers.

Many farm workers move and change jobs frequently, and the UFW apparently lost contact with many of the workers who earned pension benefits. Periodically, the UFW announces that it has found some of the 2,000 workers who are entitled to pension benefits and are not receiving them, and alerts the press when it provides these workers with the pension benefits they earned. For example, one 76-year old retired farm worker reported he received $660 a month from Social Security, and $289 from the UFW's pension plan.

In February 2002, the UFW announced that its pension fund had $100 million in assets and 10,000 members, and was paying pension benefits that averaged $160 a month to 2,200 workers. Workers had to work at least 500 hours a year for 10 years under UFW contract, and later five years, to earn pension benefits. An estimated 47 percent of US workers are covered by retirement plans.

Chavez Day. Cesar Chavez's March 31 birthday was celebrated throughout the US, and for the second year in California as the Cesar Chavez Day of Service and Learning (www.chavezday.ca.gov and www.chavezfoundation .org). Chavez supporters say that the federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. has evolved into a day of parades, prayer and multicultural exchanges, and they want Cesar Chavez Day to become a holiday devoted to community service and educating young people. California provided $5 million to fund 64 community service projects and education campaigns.

Pictsweet/Bear Creek. The UFW continued to pressure Pictsweet Mushroom Farms in Ventura, California for a contract. The UFW won an election at the plant in 1975, but there has been no contract since United Foods Inc bought the plant in 1987; negotiations have been ongoing since January 2000.

Pictsweet wants its workers to vote in a decertification election. The UFW says that such an election would be unfair because Pictsweet aided the workers who want to decertify the UFW. A decertification petition was filed in January 2001, but the ALRB prevented it from occurring until the unfair labor practice charges filed by the UFW were resolved. The ALRB's General Counsel issued a complaint in September 2001 saying that Pictsweet fired a worker in May 2001 in retaliation for his union activities, and an ALJ agreed that the worker was unlawfully fired and ordered him reinstated in January 2002.

Church and other support groups continue to arrive in Ventura to support the workers. Several Unitarian Universalist congregations in Southern California on March 2, 2002 brought money and food to the UFW.

Bear Creek Corp (www.bco.com), parent company of Jackson & Perkins, has developed two commemorative roses: the Our Lady of Guadalupe rose and the Cesar E. Chavez rose; a portion of the sales revenue goes to the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation (www.cesarechavezfoundation.org). Bear Creek is one of the largest UFW contracts, covering a peak 1,000 workers who earn $6.75 to $15 an hour, receive health insurance, pension benefits and up to three weeks vacation plus 10 paid holidays - including Chavez's birthday.

Dairies. Salinas-based United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1096 has been organizing dairy employees in the Central Valley.

Stephanie Chavez, "Chavez Day," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2002. John Mitchell, "Church members rally for farm union," Ventura County Star, March 3, 2002. "Judge says farm illegally fired worker," Los Angeles Times, January 17, 2002.