Union Members Allowed to Seek Non-Union Jobs at Fair

Labor union leaders, who last year ordered a boycott of the Del Mar Fair, have changed tactics and voted to allow union members to seek the 600 non-union jobs during the 18-day event.

“It beats picketing,” said Joe Francis, executive secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, who announced the abrupt about-face Thursday. “It’s a positive step that I believe signals better relationships between labor and the fair board in the future.”

The action was taken after a meeting of 66 union local representatives Wednesday night to decide whether to continue last year’s boycott and picketing of the fairgrounds. Francis would not give the vote totals on the issue but said, “it was not unanimous.”

He also would not comment on whether all nine unions that formerly controlled about 400 of the 600 temporary fair jobs would follow the labor council’s lead in dropping the boycott and permitting their members to work at the lower non-union wages.

Last year, union members picketed the gates to the Del Mar Fairgrounds before and during the run of the fair and claimed to have cut attendance appreciably. Fair officials, however, said the 1984 event drew the largest crowd ever--more than 700,000--and denied labor union charges that 33% of the attendees were admitted free on passes.

Roger Vitaich, fair manager, said that 60% to 80% of the jobs have been filled with last year’s workers who reapplied. He said that a few vacancies still exist in every job category.

Until last year, unions had controlled most of the jobs at the county fair, and wages were set at union scales--almost double the present wages. But Del Mar Fair Board directors cut wages for temporary fair workers by 34% to 40% in October, 1983, and declined to honor decades-old labor union agreements at hiring time last year.

Both Vitaich and Francis pointed out that state labor regulations prohibited the Del Mar Fair Board from bargaining with employee groups over wage rates and they opened the door for hiring of non-union workers during the 1984 fair and again this year. Francis said that the labor council would continue to work to change the restrictive legislation.

Francis said that the labor council delegates’ decision to allow union members to seek the non-union positions was not a precedent-setting decision. It stems, he said, from labor’s inability to seek renewal of previous labor contracts after the state labor laws were changed in 1983.

John Baird, business manager of Service Employees International, Local 102, which held 225 of the temporary fair jobs in previous years, said that he expected most of his members to be rehired for the non-union positions at this year’s fair.

Bill Martin, spokesman for Teamsters Local 481, said that his members were free to seek positions as parking attendants and tram drivers.

Vitaich said that Del Mar Fair administrators were “very pleased” with the unions’ decision to drop the boycott and picketing plans.

He attributed the decision to modest salary increases of 4% to 5% granted in some job categories last fall and another 4% average increase this month. Workers at the 1985 fair will earn 3.5% to 9% more than the salaries first set by fair directors after their decision to drop union-scale wages in 1983, he said.