OXNARD : UFW Members Picket Outside Produce Firm

The United Farm Workers union picketed Ocean View Produce Co. near Oxnard on Monday, protesting the company’s decision to send workers home for the day for allegedly participating in a work slowdown.

A company spokesman said about 100 celery workers were participating in the slowdown when they were told to go home Monday afternoon.

It was the third time in the past 10 days that workers at Ocean View, a subsidiary of Dole Food Co., had taken such an action, spokesman Tom Pernice said.

The laborers were free to return today, Pernice said.

“Crews were not working up to the standard they should be and they were asked to leave,” he said. “I think the company could suspend them, but it did not.”

Ocean View and the UFW have been involved in a prolonged labor dispute. UFW leaders have been trying to get the company to honor a recent state labor board ruling that gives the union the right to negotiate a contract for the workers.

The company is still reviewing that ruling.

A UFW spokesman denied that workers were participating in a slowdown, and said the company is just trying to pressure union supporters into giving up their push for a contract.

“At no time was the union involved in any work stoppage or slowdown,” Mario Brito, who heads the UFW’s Oxnard office, said.

“What we are seeing is a deliberate attempt to pressure union supporters, to isolate them. What we showed the company is that every time they do something like this, we’re going to be right on top of them.”

After protesting at Ocean View, the workers joined about 200 strawberry workers who are striking against a Camarillo farm.