OXNARD : Farm Workers Accuse Dole of Intimidation

A group of about 35 labor organizers and field workers protested Tuesday outside the Dole Food Co. headquarters in Westlake Village over the dismissal of two Oxnard celery pickers who said they were fired because they were campaigning to start a chapter of the United Farm Workers union.

Saying that an employee of Ocean View Produce, a Dole subsidiary in Oxnard, had tried to intimidate union organizers and made racial insults to fieldworkers, David Martinez, the UFW’s secretary-treasurer, called for a boycott of Dole products by the Latino community if the workers are not rehired.

“If the Dole company thinks Mexicans are ignorant fools and animals, then the Dole company doesn’t deserve a single cent from Mexicans for their bananas and pineapples,” Martinez said.

Dole officials denied the charges of racism and intimidation, and said they supported workers’ rights to hold a union election. Last week, the UFW gathered enough signatures--more than half of the 600 fieldworkers at Ocean View--to hold an election, scheduled Friday.

The two workers were let go because they violated company rules and would not be rehired, company officials said, refusing to elaborate on what rules had been broken.

“Their being discharged had nothing to do with their union organizing,” Dole spokesman Tom Pernice said. “We reject the inflammatory claims made by the UFW, and they should be rejected by all Californians, including Latino citizens.”

One of the men fired by Ocean View Produce, 32-year-old Ricardo Garcia Cortez, said he had been picking celery for the company for seven years. He, his wife and their three children are being supported by donations from other workers and from the UFW. He is trying to gather support for Friday’s election and said he wants his job back.

“How they treated you personally is not important,” he said. “To organize the workers, that is what is important.”

Jorge Estrada Ramos, a full-time volunteer with UFW, accused Dole labor consultant Steven Highfield of making racist remarks to him and to fieldworkers, including calling workers “pigs” and “ignorant fools.” UFW contends that Highfield was hired to intimidate workers from joining the union.

Pernice said Highfield was hired to advise the company on employment law and benefits planning, and denied that he made racial comments to Ramos or any other workers.

As pickets shouted the name of UFW founder Cesar Chavez, Dole employees on their way back from lunch stopped and stared. Several employees hovered inside the locked front doors, opening the door for employees but refusing to admit Martinez and Cortez, who asked to talk to company officials.