BY CHRIS RAYSON
SEATTLE, Washington - Workers leading the farm and packinghouse organizing drives of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and Teamsters in eastern Washington visited Seattle in early December to win support. Anna Guzman, a leader of organizing efforts by packinghouse workers at Washington Fruit in Yakima, spoke to Seattle supporters involved in the apple workers campaign of Teamsters United For Change on December 2. She said that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has scheduled elections at the union's request at Washington Fruit and at Stemilt in Wenatchee, Washington, for Jan. 8, 1998, to vote on joining the Teamsters.

Guzman has worked in the apple industry for over 20 years; the last 3 years as a packer. On November 12 Washington Fruit fired her as it stepped up efforts to intimidate workers and defeat the organizing drive. Guzman told supporters that her firing was "well-planned. I was a danger to them. "I was pressured all the time, getting write-ups for no reason. I wasn't fired for bad work, but because I was fighting for justice."

She asked for support to regain her job and to win the January 8 vote. The vote is being watched, Guzman said, by 15,000 other packers in eastern Washington. A victory will open the door wider for similar organizing efforts. She pointed to the organizing effort started this fall at Independent Foods Cannery in Sunnyside, Washington. This packinghouse is owned by the Platts, the same owners of Washington Fruit.

On the last day of work in December 1996, Guzman said, Latino workers at Independent Foods were asked to come to the lunchroom for a "surprise, while the anglo workers were sent home." In the lunchroom, the workers were met by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS agents). About 40 people were arrested and transported to Seattle by bus - ankles and hands cuffed -for deportation to Mexico.

Wages in the packinghouses, Guzman said, are below the poverty line, $7.82 an hour, or less than $12,000 a year. But, she added, "our struggle is not just about better wages but to win respect and dignity."

Pastor Mejia, a UFW member on union leave from his job at Chateau Ste. Michel, told 40 participants at the Militant Labor Forum December 6 that the UFW is "working in solidarity" with the Teamsters packinghouse campaign. "If they can win contracts, it will be a big advantage for us," Mejia said. He pointed out that, like Washington Fruit, many packinghouses own apple orchards.

The Militant Labor Forum was part of a week-long tour of Seattle by farm workers after the apple harvest ended in eastern Washington. The tour included talks at the University of Washington and other campuses, churches, and union meetings, including a meeting of the International Association of Machinists Local 751-A at Boeing. Five farm workers spoke at the forum, detailing the conditions that drive the organizing effort and assessing gains made during the recently concluded apple harvest.

Angel Ortiz has lived in Mattawa, Washington, for eight years. He has a license to spray, as well as drive and fix tractors and other farm machinery. He is paid $6 an hour and makes between $10,000 and $12,000 a year. "I could get work in better-paying jobs in the city," Ortiz said, "but I have children in schools in Mattawa."

Ortiz rents a trailer in a mobile home lot for $350 per month. Mattawa has two mobile home lots where farm workers rent. Each lot has 35 spaces. Owners of the lots are dividing trailers in half, renting each half for $350 per month. Ortiz adds, "there is no laundry, no washers and dryers in the lots. We're trying to organize to improve these conditions."

Maria Vallejo has lived in Mattawa for five years. She pointed to the discrimination women face in the fields. They work only six to eight months a year and work under the pressure of foremen "who harass us sexually."

Pastor Mejia spoke last at the forum, contrasting the union wages and working conditions at Chateau Ste. Michel to conditions at the nonunion orchards and farms. Workers at Chateau Ste. Michel, the only UFW-organized site in eastern Washington, are now working under their second contract.

"One hundred ninety workers now have a medical, dental, and pension plan, nine paid holidays, and job security where the owner can't fire us," Mejia stated. "Now we have a measure of respect." Mejia has worked for the winery for 10 years. For the past year he has been full-time for the United Farm Workers.

Mejia reviewed the success of eastern Washington farm workers during the apple harvest to win their first wage raises "in many years." Four strikes occurred in the Mattawa area. Each strike "won a $1 an hour raise," he reported, also pointing out that 1,200 farm workers and their supporters marched in Mattawa August 10 demanding a wage raise.

Mejia said that following the demonstration the ranchers launched a campaign to intimidate farm workers. "They tried to blacklist participants in the march. Workers were brought in from California, paid $15 an hour, and told to campaign against the union. INS raids and threats of raids were used to intimidate workers without proper paperwork."

Despite the growers' pressure, Mejia felt the UFW organizing drive had achieved real gains during the apple harvest. "We're not organizing a boycott," Mejia said. "We're now trying to organize farm workers. We're preparing for a big campaign by building a strong base. And we're gathering strength from Watsonville, California, to Mattawa, Washington."

Chris Rayson is a member of the United Transportation Union in Seattle.  
 
 
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