Walkout at Walnut Plant Ends After Nearly 14 Years

A bitter labor dispute that began nearly 14 years ago with a walkout in Stockton, Calif., has finally come to an end after workers at the world’s largest walnut processing plant voted to accept a new five-year contract.

The members of the Teamsters Local 601 late Tuesday night ratified the contract by a vote of 180 to 61, clearing the way for striking workers to return to their old jobs at Diamond of California, the giant walnut cooperative.

Most of the 600 strikers who walked out Sept. 4, 1991, have since found jobs elsewhere and aren’t expected to return, said Lucio Reyes, the union’s secretary-treasurer.

“Nobody ever thought it would take this long,” Reyes said. “The company didn’t expect it. We didn’t expect it. I think it was worth it in that we did accomplish something. Both parties now realize we have to work together. Everyone should be feeling good about this.”

Teamster officials, who supported ratification of the new pact, said it provided wage increases and restored full seniority and benefits to the original strikers.

The workers will have 10 days to respond to letters inquiring if they want their old jobs.

In a statement Tuesday night to the Stockton Record, Gary Ford, Diamond’s executive vice president said: “This has been a very long and complicated process, and we are happy to have it resolved. We believe this new contract is fair and in the best interest of our owners as well as our employees.”

In 1985, the workers took a 30% pay cut and, as the cooperative’s finances improved, fought to have the cuts reversed. The union’s leadership ordered the walkout when Diamond offered a dime-an-hour raise and a bonus package in 1991.

But the cooperative already had begun training replacements, and automated machinery had made many of the laborers’ jobs unnecessary over the years.

The cooperative prospered despite the strike and has said the employees would have been better off taking the bonuses it offered.

Teamsters International President James P. Hoffa called the strike one of the union’s “epic battles” during a rally at the plant in 2000.

“Someday they will look back here, at the land of John Steinbeck and ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ and say ... ‘The workers at Stockton’s Diamond plant, they are the ones who stood up,’ ” Hoffa said at the rally.