Workers at 12 Wineries Give In, OK ‘Same Pact’

Threatened with the loss of their jobs, 2,200 striking winery workers on Thursday approved the “exact same contract” they had overwhelmingly rejected last week, ending a seven-week walkout against 12 of California’s largest wine makers, union officials said.

“I would imagine the notices that they would be permanently replaced accounts for the turnaround in the vote,” said Robert Fogg, president of the Distillery, Wine and Allied Workers International Union’s Local 186 in Modesto.

About 80% of the striking workers at wineries from Bakersfield to the Napa Valley rejected the Winery Employers Assn.’s contract offer last week and called for a national boycott of their employers’ products.

Robert Lieber, an attorney for the association that includes E. & J. Gallo, Almaden and Christian Bros., issued a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the strikers on Monday, telling them to accept the contract offer or lose their jobs to permanent replacements.

Thursday’s vote resulted in 66% approving the contract, which runs through March, 1989. Without the permanent replacement notices sent to his members, Fogg said, the employers’ contract would have been rejected again on Thursday.

“These people are hurt and disillusioned,” he said. “They can’t believe the companies did this to them, since they helped build those companies. It’s one thing to bring them back after a vote giving them a choice. It’s another thing when the contract has been forced down their throats.”

The workers had objected to management demands that they agree to wage reductions, reduced pension and medical contributions from employers and elimination of supplemental worker’s compensation benefits.

The strike began on Aug. 16, targeting a 12-member employer group that produces more than half of California’s wines. The group also includes Charles Krug, Franzia, Vie-Del, Bronco, Lamont, Fromm & Sichel and Gibson and Sierra.

Fogg said he did not make a statement approving or disapproving of the contract offer before the vote because he “wanted to get a clear feeling from his membership.” Employers will begin contacting workers today to set up procedures for returning to work next week, he said.

Describing himself as “damned proud” of his members, Fogg warned that “Mr. Lieber hasn’t heard the end of me or of Local 186. They (employers) don’t care about their people, and they will suffer for that.”

Lieber could not be reached for comment.