The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.29           September 1, 1997 
 
 
Antiunion Rally In Watsonville Draws 1,200  

BY BARBARA BOWMAN
WATSONVILLE, California - On August 10, some 1,200 antiunion, pro-grower demonstrators marched through a working-class neighborhood here, retracing the route of last April's 25,000-strong pro-United Farm Workers (UFW) march. The Watsonville area is the center of the UFW's effort to organize the state's 20,000 berry pickers in the Pajaro and Salinas valleys.

The antiunion demonstration, dubbed the "March for Truth," was almost exclusively Mexican and Chicano, with a handful of Anglo growers participating. The event was organized by the Agricultural Workers Committee (AWC). This group includes farmworkers, gang bosses and other supervisors, and some of the growers themselves.

The demands of the march included: 1) an end to visits to homes and work places at lunch by UFW organizers and supporters. 2) That employers not be required to turn over employee names and addresses to the unions. 3) That union workplace access only be allowed for 30 days instead of 120 days.

Signs identified groups as work crews from over a dozen local farms. Many were joined by family members. Other participants were identified to the Militant as supervisors or growers by Thomas Alejo, a well-known community activist and UFW supporter. Many of these bosses were once farmworkers themselves. They have become growers under a contract system through which the big cooler companies organize the production of the majority of strawberries.

Militant reporters talked to demonstrators at a rally before the march kicked off and asked why they were against the UFW's attempt to organize them. A number of workers from E.K.T. Farm said they had worked steadily for 5-15 years. "We don't want the union," said one. "It tells lies. It says we work with bloodied-hands, that we live in junky cars. Maybe the Indians do, but we're treated good." This comment was a reference to many recent immigrants to the area who have roots in Mexico's indigenous population. Many of these farmworkers speak Spanish as a second language.

"We have benefits like insurance," said another. "We have clean water and bathrooms in the fields. Students are organizers for the unions; we are the real farmworkers."

Rosio Alanic works at Coastal Berry, formerly Gargiulo's Inc., the state's largest strawberry producer and a major target of the UFW organizing efforts. "We're not against the union," she claimed. "We want the union to stop bothering us at work. We make $350 a week and if the union wins the company will close and we'll lose our jobs."

Following speeches by leaders of the Agricultural Workers Committee and the singing of the U.S. and Mexican national anthems the march stepped off. Unlike the April demonstration, where the response of the spectators along the march route was spirited and supportive, most people who watched the August 10 march did so in silence with crossed arms and grim expressions, letting pro-union signs on their lawns and in their windows proclaim which side they were on.

Paula Hernández, a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), told the Militant, "I think it's sad. They have good organization, but for the wrong cause... They're being used by the growers. They're misinformed and misled."

The United Farm Workers had appealed to their supporters not to confront the antiunion marchers, but a few young people grabbed signs from windows and lawns and formed spontaneous clumps of counter-demonstrators along the route.

Students from Watsonville High School manned a small picket line protesting the Police Department's issuing a permit to the Agricultural Workers Committee while denying the student group a permit to hold a "Watsonville Peace and Unity March."

A few days earlier, UFW organizers attempting to speak to workers at one of Coastal Berry's fields, were confronted by a group of 50 led by AWC thugs and forced to retreat from the field. A union election is expected to be held at Coastal Berry, California's largest strawberry grower, between now and the end of September.

The day before the pro-growers mobilization, some 60 supporters of the UFW gathered at Teamsters Local 912 union hall in Watsonville. Among those participating were UFW- organized mushroom workers, some strawberry pickers, students from several Bay area campuses and trade unionists from a handful of unions. The task for the day was to discuss with community residents the UFW's fight to organize a union. As part of this, residents were asked to put pro- UFW signs on their lawns. A group of six were laying a driveway for one of their homes. "I picked strawberries for five years and its hard work," one man piped up. They planted a sign by where they were pouring cement.

Barbara Bowman is a member of United Transportation Union Local 1732 in San Francisco. Omari Musa and Kate Irakawa contributed to this article.  
 
 
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