UFW, Grower May End Long Dispute

The two-decade struggle between the farm workers union founded by Cesar Chavez and a Salinas-based agribusiness giant has apparently ended with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit being dropped and a tentative labor agreement being reached.

The bitter fight between the United Farm Workers and Bruce Church Inc., the nation’s third-largest lettuce grower, has been fought in the fields, the courts and at the hearing rooms of the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board since the 1970s.

The agreement between the UFW and Church signifies a victory for the UFW and its president, Arturo Rodriguez, and a more conciliatory attitude toward his workers by Steve Taylor, Church’s chief executive officer since 1994.

In one way, a fight begun by the fathers is being settled by the sons. Rodriguez is the son-in-law of Cesar Chavez and became president of the union upon Chavez’s death in 1993. Taylor’s late father, Ted, was CEO of the family-owned business when the clash with the UFW began.

Neither the union nor the company would comment Thursday on the settlement until the contract is ratified by the workers.

But in documents filed with the labor board in El Centro, the two sides said that “after extensive negotiations, Bruce Church and the UFW have reached an agreement settling all outstanding issues between them, including the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement.”

Those issues include a lawsuit against the UFW by Church that twice led to multimillion-dollar judgments by juries in Yuma, Ariz., against the union. The suit was prompted by a 1979 UFW boycott against supermarkets selling Church lettuce. The boycott began after Church, led by Ted Taylor, refused to renew a contract with the UFW.

Both judgments were overturned by the Arizona appeals court, which said, in effect, that the case should have been tried in California where the boycott took place. The company, which did $125 million in sales last year, preferred Yuma because Arizona law is less friendly to labor unions and boycotts.

Chavez, 66, died after spending his second day being grilled by Church lawyers during the second trial. The jury in that trial awarded Church a $3.7-million judgment. But on Feb. 14, the judgment was overturned by the appeals court, which sent it back for a possible third trial.

The settlement also voids an appeal by Church against allegations by the union that Church owes back wages to 170 workers.