Strawberry Workers Cast Ballots on Union

Stepping out of the fields after a long day of picking strawberries, Guillermo Licea was confident that the vote he had cast earlier in the day for the United Farm Workers union would soon help improve his life and that of his fellow laborers.

The 38-year-old field hand was among 650 Oxnard workers who cast ballots Tuesday during the first day of a hotly contested election to decide which union, if any, should represent pickers at Coastal Berry Co., the nation’s largest direct employer of strawberry workers.

“With the union, we can have better pay and better medical benefits,” argued Licea, trying to wash stubborn strawberry stains from his hands. “There is more respect in the fields if you’re with the union, and the company doesn’t mistreat anyone.”

The election, which is crucial to the UFW’s long-running campaign to unionize California’s strawberry industry, shifts today to Watsonville and Salinas, where another 800 Coastal Berry workers are eligible to cast ballots.

A UFW rival, Coastal Berry of California Farmworkers Committee, is also on the ballot. The votes will be counted this afternoon in Salinas, and high-ranking UFW officials will gather in Oxnard to await the results.

“I feel very confident that we are going to prevail,” said Tanis Ybarra, a UFW national vice president who was in Oxnard on Tuesday to oversee the election. “We had a lot of worker enthusiasm and a lot of worker involvement.”

Indeed, even as officials with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board set up polling booths Tuesday in four Oxnard fields, several strawberry pickers wore red-and-black UFW buttons on their clothing to show support for the union.

Rosa Ramirez, 30, had more than a dozen buttons pinned to the bandannas intricately wrapped around her head and face, leaving only a narrow slit for her eyes.

“We want to be treated right; we want to ensure a good wage,” the Oxnard mother of four said as several of her co-workers launched into an after-work pro-UFW chant: “Si Se Puede! Si Se Puede!” [“Yes You Can!”]

“If we are all together,” Ramirez said, “I think we can achieve these things.”

Those sentiments, however, are not universally embraced.

Francisco Alcalar, 32, wore a white baseball cap that demonstrated his opposition to the union: It contained a UFW emblem with a diagonal slash through it.

Alcalar said he worried that the company would shut down part of its operation and put people out of work if the UFW won a contract.

“The ranch is good to the workers; the people treat us well,” he said, a handful of fellow anti-UFW pickers packed into his van. “We don’t need any union. We just need to be left alone.”

Because of rapid growth in Ventura County’s strawberry industry, the Oxnard workers are key to the UFW’s nearly four-year campaign to win a contract at Coastal Berry and gain a foothold in California’s tough-to-organize strawberry industry.

With nearly 6,700 acres in production this season, Ventura County has seen a 50% increase in acreage dedicated to strawberries since 1994.

Coastal Berry reflects that growth. The company is farming 330 acres in Ventura County this season compared with 110 acres last year.

In addition, about 650 of Coastal Berry’s 1,500 employees work in the Oxnard area. Last year, the company employed about 220 workers locally.

“It’s all about money and getting a better life,” said Esperanza Alarcon, 50, who has been picking strawberries for a decade, although this is her first year with Coastal Berry. “Who doesn’t want that?”