Westside : DOLE PROTEST
About 250 farm workers and their supporters protested Thursday outside a Dole Food Co. office in Westwood over a labor dispute at a Dole subsidiary near Oxnard.
“We’re asking Dole to respect farm workers and treat them like human beings,” said Arturo Rodriquez, president of the United Farm Workers union. “We’re fed up with Dole treating farm workers like they are farm implements.”
The UFW and Dole have been at odds since last year when workers at Oceanview Produce, a Dole subsidiary near Oxnard, voted to join the farm workers union. Dole filed a complaint with the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, alleging that the union intimidated workers into supporting the union. The board dismissed that complaint in March.
Oceanview plowed under its strawberry crop and laid off 350 workers, saying that the operation was no longer profitable. The UFW maintains that the move was retaliatory.
Last week, 250 more workers at Oceanview were told they would probably be replaced by August, UFW leaders and company officials said.
Dole spokesman Thomas J. Pernice said the harvesting operations were being consolidated using Teamsters workers from another Dole subsidiary.
“They’re still union workers,” Pernice said. “They just happen to be from another union.”
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