Ballots Disputed in Fieldworkers Union Vote

A closely watched rematch between the United Farm Workers and an upstart independent union fighting to represent 1,500 California strawberry pickers has come down to 92 disputed ballots that might not be resolved for weeks or even months.

State officials counted ballots until 10 p.m. Friday. The balloting followed a pattern similar to that of an election held a week earlier that led to this runoff. Friday’s count was 688 votes for the Coastal Berry of California Farmworkers Committee and 598 for the UFW--a 90-vote difference sufficient to make the disputed ballots significant.

Officials with the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board would not elaborate on the nature of the disputed ballots.

The election outcome is considered crucial to the future of the UFW, which has waged a frustrating and costly three-year campaign to organize the state’s 20,000 strawberry workers.

Although attorneys for both sides predict a volley of objections from the losing camp, the grower--Coastal Berry Co. of Watsonville--hoped that the count would finally settle a yearlong dispute.

Coastal Berry workers last week cast ballots that contained three choices: the UFW, the independent Coastal Berry committee or no union. A runoff was called because no side received a clear majority.

Campaigning since then has been fierce and disruptive, hitting the state’s largest grower during the peak of the harvesting season. To ensure peace, Coastal Berry hired security guards to oversee the voting Thursday and Friday. The company also took the unusual precaution of removing all supervisors from the field to head off allegations of intimidation or coercion.

UFW officials said that regardless of the outcome, they will continue their strawberry campaign, which has cost the union and its financial backer, the AFL-CIO, an estimated $90,000 a month since 1996. Hundreds of growers make up California’s $782-million strawberry industry. But so far the union has signed up only a small organic grower near Santa Cruz with 40 employees.

“A year from now, no matter what happens, we’re going to be in strawberries and we’re going to have some victories,” said UFW spokesman Marc Grossman.

Still, the union’s near-loss last week has caused some to question its ability to connect with today’s picker.

A loss to the Coastal Berry committee would be particularly painful. Formed only last summer after a raucous confrontation between UFW supporters and foes in the fields near Watsonville, the committee appears to have no budget, no official leadership and no plan for how it will operate. Members said one of their first acts would be to elect officers.

The 27,000-member UFW charges that the committee is actually funded and controlled by the strawberry industry, which it says is determined to stop unionization. Last month, the UFW produced $56,000 in canceled checks linking strawberry growers to other workers’ committees that have since gone bankrupt. The UFW has not proved such a relationship, however, to the Coastal Berry committee.