Rural Laws: April, 1998 - Number #9

Contracts. The UFW signed 17 contracts with California growers between 1994 and 1997. In December 1997, the UFW signed its first agreement with L.E. Cooke Co., a Visalia-based firm that supplies rose, flower and tree fruit plants to growers across California. L.E. Cooke employs about 100 year-round workers and 150 seasonal workers. The UFW now represents a majority of the Central Valley's rose workers.

In November 1997, the UFW signed an agreement with table grape grower Nash de Camp Farms in Visalia, California, the first contract since the UFW's previous 1981-84 contract expired. The UFW won an election at Nash de Camp in 1977; Nash de Camp has about 240 employees.

The new contract raises wages by five percent and adds Nash de Camp workers to the UFW's pension plan. It also permits Nash de Camp the use of farm labor contractors to secure workers, and retains the company's health insurance rather than shifting workers to the UFW-run RFK plan. Nash DeCamp is a sister operation of Minneapolis-based grocery store operator Nash-Finch.

On January 1, 1997, the UFW signed a two-year agreement covering 40 to 60 tractor drivers and irrigators employed by Oceanview Produce Co., a Ventura County subsidiary of Dole Food. The agreement also settled an unfair labor practice complaint, with Dole paying $246,000 to 200 displaced celery workers. The UFW was certified as the bargaining agent for Oceanview workers in 1994.

There was a decertification vote at Oceanview on February 3, 1998 among the 40 to 60 workers covered by the agreement. The UFW asked the ALRB not to count the ballots, alleging that Oceanview "instigated, supported and financed the decertification campaign." Dole Food, with 1997 revenue of $4.3 billion, is the largest US producer and marketer of fresh fruit and vegetables.

The ALRB delayed a decertification election at Scheid Vineyards after the UFW charged that Scheid had added anti-union employees to influence the outcome. The decertification vote was reportedly prompted by worker dissatisfaction with the UFW's RFK health insurance program.

The UFW held a protest in Modesto on December 31, 1997, bringing to 14 the number of cities in which the UFW protested what it called the slowness of E.&J. Gallo to negotiate a contract for 300 farm workers in its Sonoma County vineyards. The UFW won a July 1994 election to represent Gallo farm workers in Sonoma.

There are reports that BCI is planning to stop growing lettuce and harvesting it with workers hired directly and switch to obtaining lettuce from growers who produce lettuce for BCI. It is not clear what such a switch would mean to the five-year contract signed between the UFW and BCI in May 1996.

Teamsters 890 has about 4,650 members who fill an average 2,000 field worker jobs at Bud, 300 field jobs with other growers and 250 equipment operators and mechanics.

Strawberries. On March 28, 1998, the UFW led a march in New York City protesting poor working conditions for the women whom the UFW says are half of the strawberry workers. On March 29, some 1,000 marchers in Los Angeles joined a march to commemorate Chavez's birthday, March 31, 1927. Chavez died in April 1993.

The rallies featured denunciations of wages and working conditions for strawberry workers. In response, Driscoll Strawberry Associates called on the UFW to demand secret ballot elections to determine if strawberry workers wanted to be represented by the UFW.

Dolores Huerta, 67, was profiled in a February 22, 1998 Chicago Tribune article. According to Huerta, Cesar Chavez wanted the 1966 grape boycott to be a potato boycott.

CRLA. James D. Lorenz Jr., founder of California Rural Legal Assistance in 1966, has filed several suits against the UFW in recent years, charging (in a case later dismissed) that the UFW sexually exploited its female organizers and helped mushroom workers in Santa Cruz county protest the UFW's RFK health insurance plan. Lorenz plans to file a case charging that the UFW did not pay overtime wages to its organizers involved in the strawberry campaign.

Lorenz headed the state's Employment Development Department in 1974, moved to Washington DC to work for Ralph Nader, and then returned to Berkeley and to the CRLA Foundation. According to newspaper reports, his companion, Guadalupe Lucio, a former radio reporter who turned against the UFW, helped Lorenz find Salinas-area clients dissatisfied with the UFW.

Mexico Office. At the suggestion of the Michoacán governor, the UFW has requested Mexican government permission to open an office in Michoacán to serve farm workers while they are in Mexico during the winter months. If approved, the UFW would be the first foreign union with an office in Mexico.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney visited Mexico in January 1998, the first visit by a US labor leader since 1924. Sweeney met with several leaders of independent unions and discussed possible cooperation to organize Mexican workers in the US. The Mexican government is discouraging US union ties with non-Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) unions.

Filipino Farm Workers. October 1997 was Filipino American History Month, which prompted several stories on the "forgotten legacy" of Filipino farm workers in California. In 1965, some 1,500 Filipino grape pickers in the AFL-CIO-affiliated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee went on strike in Delano and Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association joined the strike 11 days later.

Most historians say that Filipinos were squeezed out of Chavez's union. Historian Alex Fabros of San Francisco State says that "Filipinos were marginalized and never given true power within the [UFW] union." Filipinos Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz resigned from the UFW, but Peter Velasco remained secretary-treasurer until his retirement in 1988.

In 1973, UFW volunteers built the 60-unit Agbayani Village in Delano for retired Filipino farm workers. Most were single-- Filipino men outnumbered women 14 to 1. In 1997, the last Filipino resident who participated in the 1965 strike died. In his autobiography, Philip Vera Cruz, a former UFW officer, decried California's anti-miscegenation laws that prevented Filipinos from marrying whites and restrictive immigration laws that prevented them from bringing in Filipina brides.

Teresa Puente, "Dolores Huerta," Chicago Tribune, February 22, 1998. Jess Bravin and Julio Laboy, "Onetime Labor Activist Is Now Taking On UFW," Wall Street Journal, February 4, 1998. Edwin Garcia, "UFW aims to open an office in Mexico," San Jose Mercury News, January 9, 1997. Emelyn Cruz, "Paving the way for UFW; Filipinos began historic grape strike of 1965; Cesar Chavez joined them 11 days later," San Francisco Examiner, October 19, 1997