Ruling May Devastate Chavez’s Union

Growers have won a critical court battle that threatens to deal a devastating economic blow to Cesar Chavez’s struggling United Farm Workers Union.

The case, which could cost the union $1.7 million or more, appears to be a return to what was once sardonically called “rural justice” for farm workers.

Until recent years, it was difficult for farm workers in rural areas of the Southwest, such as blacks in the South, to get justice from law enforcement agencies and the courts.

The situation has improved for Southern blacks. And it is no longer like it used to be for farm workers in California and other Southwestern states. In the ugly days of the past, workers were instantly fired if they sought pay raises or tried to form unions. Union organizers were frequently beaten, jailed for trespassing and sometimes tarred, feathered and then chased out of farm communities by anti-union vigilantes.

There is now a California law designed to protect the right of farm workers to join unions, although under Gov. George Deukmejian, the farm labor law seems to be helping growers more than workers. When passed in 1975, however, it provided some help to the union-organizing efforts of Chavez and his followers who, after nearly 30 years, had created the first viable farm labor union.

Even so, the union has never really thrived. And now the legal case stemming from a sometimes violent strike in 1979 could badly weaken, if not destroy, the still-small union.

The logic of the court decision against the farm workers and their union is difficult to comprehend in what are supposed to be these more enlightened days.

Imperial County Superior Judge William Lehnhardt imposed the $1.7-million judgment against the UFW on Jan. 8 for losses allegedly suffered by one grower, Maggio Inc., during the strike. Property damage was estimated at only $3,000. The balance of the judgment was based on what Maggio claimed it couldn’t harvest because of the strike.

The union does not have nearly enough funds to pay the judgment. The UFW can appeal, but to protect its assets while the case goes through the courts, it must post a bond of as much as $3.3 million. That would force the union to mortgage or sell off much of its headquarters property, office equipment and other assets.

So far, the union has lost some preliminary appeals to higher courts, and ultimate success even in non-rural courts is far from sure because the union, and especially some of the workers, were not blameless in that long and bitter strike eight years ago.

The walkout began, Chavez said then, as a “dream strike.” It started peacefully, and almost all of the nearly 4,000 workers at Maggio and most other vegetable growers’ ranches in the Imperial Valley walked off their jobs when contract negotiations broke down. Rarely had so many farm workers joined a strike anyplace in America.

But they faced formidable odds.

Middle-class businessmen and housewives and students from nearby high schools and colleges were recruited as strikebreakers. They weren’t professional farm workers, of course, although a few regular workers did join in the harvest.

Most of the strikebreakers saw it as their “civic duty” to harvest crops behind picket lines and tried hard to help their friends, the growers. They could not match the energy and dexterity of the regular workers, however, so there were substantial crop losses.

During the trial, some law enforcement agents conceded that union organizers tried to keep the strike peaceful. But rocks were thrown by strikers, tires were slashed and farm equipment was damaged.

Some strikebreakers and growers were harassed by strikers rushing onto the fields cursing and screaming huelga! (strike) in a rowdy attempt to get their hastily hired replacements to stop harvesting crops.

Municipal police and sheriff’s deputies turned out in force, ostensibly to prevent violence.

On one occasion, a large group of noisy strikers marched to the center of a large field where strikebreakers were too far away to hear the cries of “huelga!” Sheriff’s deputies tried to repel the “invasion” by tossing tear gas grenades at the strikers. But the wind blew the gas back into the faces of the deputies, and one officer was slightly injured in the melee.

None of the growers or their hired guards, who were armed with shotguns, tear gas, pistols and attack dogs, suffered any serious injuries.

In contrast, the skull of striker Arnoldo Barrazo was cracked open by a grower guard using the butt of his shotgun. Another striker, Isauro Lopez, was permanently crippled when he was struck by a grower’s car. Many other strikers were injured.

And one striker, Rufino Contreras, was shot through the head and killed. Three grower supervisors were formally charged with the murder. But Lehnhardt, who later ruled that the union and strikers were legally responsible for the various incidents of violence and crop losses, dismissed the murder charges against the supervisors on the grounds that no one could say for sure who fired the fatal bullet.

Questions about Lehnhardt’s impartiality were raised when it was revealed that his wife, Sarah, had worked for a short time for Maggio as a strikebreaker. The judge had not mentioned that fact when both the union and growers accepted his assurances that he was unbiased and accepted him to hear the case without a jury.

His wife’s role was disclosed when a union attorney asked Lehnhardt during a recess how his children avoided being recruited as replacements for the strikers. The judge said his wife, but not his children, had worked for Maggio.

Startled, the union lawyers tried without success to get the judge to withdraw from the case.

Appeals to higher courts failed to dislodge Lehnhardt. The other judges found, as one put it, that “we do not live in colonial days where women’s employment is determined by men.”

“My wife does not discuss her outside activities with me,” he added.

But that judge’s wife hasn’t been directly involved in any case he has heard.

Initially, most Imperial Valley vegetable growers, including Maggio, were struck by the UFW. There were years of lawsuits and countersuits as a result of the bitter strike. The union never did get contracts with the Imperial Valley growers. Only Maggio persisted in the legal battles against the union, but so far its victory has been substantial. If the union can figure out a way to make its appeals without first exhausting all of its assets, the case could drag on for years.

And, as UFW attorney Ellen Eggers has warned, “Judge Lehnhardt’s perversion of justice for farm workers and their union could be a deathblow to the UFW.”

Proving the Obvious

A new University of California study sounds as though it deserves one of those “Golden Fleece” awards Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.)used to give for government studies that wasted taxpayers’ money by proving the obvious. The UC study might, however, help Labor Secretary William E. Brock win an argument in the White House.

The study concluded that farm workers who are provided with sanitary toilets and safe drinking water are less likely to get sick than those who use the fields to relieve themselves and don’t get safe drinking water.

There is no federal law requiring field toilets for farm workers. California and a few other states do have such laws, but they are often flouted by growers. As many as one-fourth of California’s farm workers have no sanitary facilities despite the state law, the study found.

Brock wanted individual states to enact their own farm sanitation laws. But he said if too few states did, he would issue federal regulations requiring the toilets and potable water.

While Brock waited for the states to act, a District of Columbia federal court on Feb. 6 ordered him to go ahead and require toilets and safe drinking water, saying the decades of debate over the issue have been a “disgraceful chapter of legal neglect.”

Some key White House officials want to try to overturn the court order on appeal. Brock reportedly wants to abide by the order without any more court battles. It hardly sounds like a radical move, but apparently it is, at least for a member of the Reagan Administration.

Perhaps now that the university has proven sanitary facilities are good things to have, Brock will win.