UFW Steps Up Organizing Efforts in Area : Labor: The drive is the most intensive activity in the county since 1990. The focus is on two firms in Oxnard and Moorpark.

Cesar Chavez’s son-in-law, national president of the United Farm Workers, is working the fields in Ventura County in the most intensive farm labor organizing activity here since 1990.

Arturo Rodriguez has been working in the county for a month, solidifying union membership and lobbying growers and packers for better contracts--concentrating on Moorpark’s Muranaka Farms and Dole Food Co.’s Oxnard subsidiary as part of a statewide campaign to reinvigorate the beleaguered union.

“This is most definitely a decision to refocus attention on Ventura,” union negotiator Mario Brito said.

Once a stronghold of support with more than 4,000 union members, United Farm Worker membership in Ventura County reflects a statewide decline and now has dropped to just 500.

A year ago, the local union office had only one representative, Brito said. Now, along with negotiator Brito, there are five local representatives.

“The time is right for organizing,” he said.

Rodriguez was in Fresno during the Labor Day weekend for the union’s first national convention since the death of Cesar Chavez in the spring of 1993. He will meet today in Moorpark with lawyers from Muranaka Farms to discuss health benefits and pay increases for the company’s 150 workers, who have been without a contract since 1992.

On Tuesday, Brito joined other union members who picketed the Muranaka Farms packinghouse on Los Angeles Avenue in Moorpark. Brito said the union was prepared to take further action and would not rule out a strike if negotiations did not progress at a faster pace.

Rodriguez is also helping local organizers prepare for a fight over union representation at Dole’s Oceanview Produce.

In the first vote for representation at a county company since 1990, workers in recent months voted 298 to 278 in favor of union representation. The victory was one in a recent series of seven the union has achieved across the state, but it was short-lived. The company contested the vote, laying off 450 strawberry workers the day the final results were released.

Company officials said the union election had no bearing on the timing of the layoffs.

“It was a business decision that we made long before the outcome of the election was known,” said Thomas Pernice, a Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Dole Food Co. Inc. “Harvesting strawberries is no longer profitable.”

Pernice said the union was targeting Dole because of its high profile. “We certainly can see that they have intensified their efforts recently,” he said. “I think they selected Dole because people recognize the name and (the union) sees a good opportunity to get publicity.”

A representative from the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which is reviewing the election and actions by both Dole and the union in the election aftermath, said the dispute is “going to get messy.”

“I’ve been here a long time and it seems like things are heating up again,” said Norma Turner, the acting executive secretary for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board in Sacramento. “Week by week we are seeing an increase of activity--from more election petitions to complaints. The numbers have been growing.”

The board has scheduled a Monday hearing in Oxnard to review complaints by Dole that the union intimidated workers before the election. The board also plans to review union complaints against the company, but a date for that hearing has not been set.

Despite indications of growing union activism, including reports the union has signed 10,000 new members nationwide this year alone, local critics of the organization are saying the union is still on the decline.

“I’m aware of the rhetoric, but their activity is extremely limited,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “They pick up some headlines with some of their bravado, but in terms of what’s measurable or quantifiable those are the only two things I’ve heard about locally.”