City Council Endorses UFW Grape Boycott

The Los Angeles City Council, urged by United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez to join his campaign to ban the use of certain pesticide “poisons,” Wednesday endorsed the UFW’s 3-year-old boycott of table grapes.

The council’s show of solidarity with the UFW came over the objections of farm industry representatives, who said the council was being manipulated by Chavez.

In its resolution, the council urged grape farmers to bargain in good faith with the UFW to resolve pesticide concerns. The council also instructed the Department of Water and Power to determine the level of pesticide contamination in water.

In addition to a labor contract with wage guarantees, the UFW is asking grape growers to ban the use of five pesticides--parathion, methyl bromide, captan, phosdrin and dinoseb. All but dinoseb are registered for use on grapes by federal regulators. Growers dispute the UFW’s claims that they are using dinoseb.

Called Carcinogenic

Despite the federal approval, studies have shown the pesticides to be carcinogenic, said Dr. Marion Moses, an occupational medicine specialist and UFW volunteer.

The danger to consumers, Moses said, is in “the chronic effects of low-level exposure over a lifetime. There is no such thing as a safe-level exposure to a carcinogen. There is no proof there is a safe level.”

The resolution was adopted despite arguments from a group called the Grape Workers and Farmers Coalition, which says it represents 2,000 field hands and 1,100 growers, that the table grape industry is unfairly being singled out because of the UFW’s failure to organize the industry’s workers.

Chavez later said that the group is “of course a front for the growers.”

In a statement from Sacramento, Henry J. Voss, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, said: “The (city) council made a mistake and made a mockery of the democratic process. With little notice and vast amounts of misinformation, the council members allowed themselves to be manipulated.”

The resolution was introduced by the council’s two recently elected Latinos, Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina. Asked whether the vote represents Latino political influence on the council, Alatorre said: “I’ve been told that in the past something like this was seldom discussed on the floor.”