Union’s Focus on Fields Starts to Bear Fruit : Labor: Since returning to grass-roots organizing this spring, United Farm Workers has surprised growers with election wins and new contracts.
When the United Farm Workers union marched from Delano to Sacramento in April to announce a return to organizing campesinos in the fields, many growers throughout the state derided the event as a publicity stunt with more bark than bite.
But in the months since the pilgrimage, the UFW appears to be making good on its promise. It has won three elections outright and possibly a fourth at fruit and vegetable companies from Coachella to Kings County involving more than 1,000 workers. It has negotiated two new contracts--one with a Coachella table grape grower, the first grape contract in nearly a decade.
And the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, mostly silent in recent years, has filed more than a dozen complaints since May against growers who allegedly refused to bargain in good faith--a clear response to the renewed field activity.
While these gains may be small in the overall picture and no one is claiming the union has recaptured its old glory, at least some growers are looking over their shoulders at the UFW’s growing shadow.
“I do see a heightened level of concern among our growers now that the UFW has returned to organizing,” said Richard Matoian, head of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League, which represents 350 growers from Coachella to Mendocino. “No one is panicking, but I’d say the industry is on guard.”
The biggest aftershock seems to have come from the UFW’s lopsided victory last month at Warmerdam farms in Kings County, which is just north of Kern County. Of the 263 workers who cast ballots, 220 voted for the union. The state labor officials who oversaw the election were said to have been stunned.
The Warmerdams had been criticized for losing touch with their work force and using abusive labor contractors or middlemen to deal with the workers.
“It caught us by surprise,” said Bill Warmerdam, a third-generation fruit grower who conceded that his critics may be partly right. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened.”
UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said the vote was the union’s first-ever victory in Kings County.
“It was a major, major accomplishment for us,” said the 44-year-old Rodriguez, the son-in-law of the late Cesar Chavez, who led the UFW for its first 30 years.
“The workers at Warmerdam did it all. They took the message that every worker is an organizer. They are the ones who formed the committees and signed up their co-workers.”
None of this seemed possible just months ago with the UFW reeling from a decade of losses and the sudden death of Chavez. Even some longtime supporters found little reason for optimism. In the early 1970s, the UFW had contracts with 80% of the grape growers in the San Joaquin Valley. Two decades later, not a single contract remained.
The union had retreated from the fields, former top organizers complained. Its almost singular reliance on the table grape boycott and the issue of toxic pesticides was doing little to improve the lot of farm workers, they said.
While publicly dismissing the criticism, Rodriguez, co-founder Dolores Huerta and others huddled in strategy sessions at the UFW’s La Paz compound in the Tehachapi Mountains 100 miles north of Los Angeles.
They emerged this spring with a Delano-to-Sacramento pilgrimage that retraced the path of the union’s first trek 28 years earlier and announced a major shift in strategy: No longer would the grape boycott be the centerpiece. The union would return to the difficult work of organizing farm laborers, enlisting new members, confronting growers and pushing for new elections and contracts.
On the eve of the monthlong pilgrimage in April and at stops along the way, growers and farm groups dismissed the event as so much nostalgia. “It’s the last gasp of a dying man,” said Richard Baiz of the Grapeworkers and Farmers coalition, a longtime foe of the union.
But in the three months since 10,000 supporters marched the final leg of the 330-mile trek to the steps of the state Capitol, UFW organizers have kept up the pressure on growers and fruit companies up and down the state.
There have been rallies at Dole Food Co. in Los Angeles and at Oceanview Produce in Oxnard. There have been picket lines at date companies in Coachella and at vegetable farms in Salinas. There have been protests at the offices of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the state agency set up to enforce a landmark 1975 law that gave farm workers the right to collective bargaining. The union argues that the board has served only the interests of growers during the Deukmejian and Wilson administrations.
The dividends have been modest but real.
In addition to Warmerdam farms in Kings County, the union won two elections last month at small date companies in Coachella. Before the UFW can actually represent workers at the three companies, the state labor board must certify the vote and dismiss any grower objections, which have been filed in two of the cases.
The UFW appears headed for a big victory at Oceanview Produce. Workers voted 275 to 231 in favor of the union, but the farm labor board has yet to certify the election because 87 additional votes are disputed. The company would have to win 66 of those votes to prevail. The labor board is reviewing the matter.
Because table grapes are a $750-million-a-year industry that relies heavily on field workers for pruning, thinning and picking, the success or failure of the UFW is often measured in its impact on grapes. Chavez waged his most bitter battles against the state’s table grape giants.
Grower Lionel Steinberg of David Freedman farms in Coachella said he expects to sign the first table grape contract in nearly a decade with the UFW in the next few weeks. He is already honoring its terms, which include a wage increase from $5.80 to $6 an hour.
“We have not had a contract with a table grape grower for eight years,” Rodriguez said. “Even though (Steinberg) is not a large grower, this puts pressure on the rest of the industry. And it tells our organizers that if we can do it in Coachella, we can do it elsewhere.”
But others dismiss the importance of the Steinberg contract, pointing out that the grower has been a longtime supporter of the UFW and that the new contract is merely a resumption of an older one that went into hiatus because of a small dispute.
“Lionel Steinberg is hardly an example of a major victory,” said Bruce Obbink of the California Table Grape Commission. “The two sides just picked up where they left off several years back. It’s another example of the UFW using smoke and mirrors to make things bigger than they are.”
Steinberg himself characterized the contract as a “morale booster” to the UFW but agreed that other grape growers were much bigger quarry.
“This new agreement isn’t much of a change in my relationship with the UFW, which began on April 10, 1970, when I was the first grower to sign a contract with Cesar Chavez.”
The union concedes that it will be harder pressed in the next few weeks as the harvest and picket lines move north to Kern County, where the big table grape growers pay workers some of the better wages in the industry.
“We’ve got a strategy for the San Joaquin Valley too,” Rodriguez said. “But it would be stupid of me to tip our hand.”
The union points to several key negotiations now taking place with other growers around the state. And it highlights numbers from the state that show a significant rise in complaints against growers over allegedly unfair labor bargaining.
Already, the farm labor board has issued nearly as many complaints this year--25--as it did in all of last year. And a small staff with few resources is feeling the pinch.
“There is no question the UFW has been more active these last few months,” said Don Pressley, Agricultural Labor Relations Board general counsel, who files the complaints. “They have some very good people out in the field who are giving their time.
“The question is whether or not they can sustain it. Whether or not they can win elections and get contracts. That remains to be seen.”
