Egg City Asks for Order Limiting UFW Boycott

A Ventura County ranch Thursday asked the National Labor Relations Board to seek a federal court order curbing a United Farm Workers boycott of its eggs.

The request by Egg City follows an opinion, issued this week by NLRB staff in Washington, that ranch attorneys contend significantly bolsters their challenge to the legality of parts of a farm workers’ boycott, such as picketing markets that sell Egg City’s eggs. The union launched the boycott to pressure Egg City during a 3-month-old strike by ranch workers.

UFW officials said they will continue their boycott and vowed to fight any attempt to declare it illegal.

The UFW’s boycott has been directed primarily at the Lucky supermarket chain and small markets, most in Latino neighborhoods where support for the union and its president, Cesar Chavez, is strongest.

According to both sides, the opinion, written by a committee in the NLRB’s general counsel office in Washington, concludes that most of Egg City’s nearly 250 employees are commercial rather than agricultural workers because many of the eggs processed there are shipped in from other ranches.

Federal Law May Prevail

Should that opinion be upheld in court, the workers would be governed by federal labor laws rather than California’s farm labor laws, which have covered them in the past. The federal laws would prohibit the union’s so-called “secondary” boycott, which focuses on picketing markets that sell Egg City eggs.

Such boycotts of institutions not directly involved in a labor dispute are legal, however, under California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which governs farm laborers. The boycotts historically have been one of the UFW’s most effective tactics.

NLRB staff members could not be reached for comment Thursday, but ranch officials expressed confidence that the NLRB will seek a court order to curb the boycott, possibly as early as today.

Ben Maddock, a top UFW official in the negotiations, said the union will argue that all Egg City employees should be classified as agricultural workers as they have in the past.

Workers at Egg City, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest chicken ranch, went on strike June 24 after the ranch cut hourly wages $2, to a range of $4.07 to $5.69. The financially troubled ranch, situated north of Moorpark, in May filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

The two sides appeared to be close to a settlement two weeks ago, but negotiations broke down over the issue of how many strikers would be allowed to return to work.