UFW Alleges Grower Threatened Pickers Before Vote

Grape pickers in the Central Valley were told they could lose their jobs or their housing if they voted to unionize, the United Farm Workers alleged in a complaint filed Monday with the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

The union said workers at Giumarra Vineyards in Edison, near Bakersfield, were warned before the Sept. 1 vote that they might lose their camp housing, undocumented migrants could be fired and jobs would be imperiled if the grower switched from labor-intensive table grapes to wine grapes.

The UFW apparently lost its bid to unionize the 3,000 workers at the vineyard, but final results from the vote are pending.

Vineyard Vice President John Giumarra dismissed the allegation that threats had been made. “The UFW is trying to explain away why it lost the election and why the majority of farmworkers voted against UFW,” he said Monday.

Though results from the Sept. 1 vote have not been certified, the labor board said 1,246 votes were cast against joining the UFW and 1,121 workers voted to join the union.

Another 171 challenged ballots are still being reviewed.

Giumarra said the company would not convert the table grape crop to wine grapes because they are different varieties and it would cost millions of dollars and several years to switch.

It’s also unlikely the company would stop providing the housing it has offered workers for years, he said.

Joe Wender, the labor board’s acting executive secretary, said a decision on the challenged ballots was expected within weeks but that it would take much longer for the complaint to be reviewed. If the board decided the claim has merit, he said, it would hold a hearing and take testimony from both sides.

The UFW’s membership rolls have declined since the 1970s, when co-founder Cesar Chavez led a national grape boycott that won farmworkers their first union contracts.

A contract signed by the Giumarra family in 1970 lapsed in 1973.

Within the last year, lobbying by the UFW helped secure a ban on weeding by hand in farm fields, more protection for communities exposed to pesticide drift and emergency regulations that guarantee workers suffering from heat illness access to water.