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SALINAS, California - As hundreds of farm workers return to Northern California to work in the strawberry fields, United Farm Workers union organizers have been banned from organizing by a decision of the state Agriculture Labor Relations Board.
Governor Gray Davis, a liberal Democrat, has avoided appointing three members to the state board since January. The San Francisco Examiner reported April 23, "United Farm Worker (UFW) organizers, who helped Davis win a landslide victory in November, can't walk onto the strawberry fields to talk to workers or even go to their homes."
The UFW kicked off this year's organizing effort at a march and rally of 600 people held here April 18. The rally, overwhelmingly comprised of farm workers, was a commemoration of the life of union founder César Chávez.
As participants marched two miles through town, motorists honked their horns in support and residents came out to watch. Some joined in as marchers waved red-and-black UFW flags and chanted "Sí, se puede" (Yes, we can).
Last year the UFW concentrated on unionizing farmworkers at Coastal Berry Co., one of the state's largest growers, employing 1,500 workers. The effort was thwarted when antiunion workers who formed a grower-organized outfit, the Coastal Berry Farm Workers Committee, successfully petitioned and won a certification election. The UFW boycotted and later contested the election. The election was voided in November by an administrative law judge pending review by the Agriculture Labor Relations Board.
On July 1, 1998, prior to the election, antiunion thugs assaulted strawberry pickers in Coastal Berry's fields, hospitalizing three UFW supporters.
Sandra Rocha, who works at Coastal Berry, was one of the workers beaten in the attack. She participated in this year's demonstration. "We have made gains," Rocha told the Militant, "because we have been fighting. We got a wage increase last year, and we are being treated with a little more respect. There is still a lot of favoritism. They fired a lot of the thugs who were involved in the attack against us. But not all of them are fired. We'll see how things play out."
Dolores Huerta and Arturo Rodriguez, leaders of the UFW, spoke at the rally. Rodriguez called on growers to respect workers' right to organize. He cited the example of Swanton Berry Farm, a small organic farm north of Santa Cruz, which is the only strawberry grower to sign a contract with the UFW so far. He also appealed to Governor Davis to quickly appoint new members to the Agriculture Labor Relations Board.
March participant Guadalupe Rosas had just arrived from Mi choacán, Mexico, only to find out that because of the heavy rains the companies are not hiring for a few more weeks. "This is not good news because it is shortening our work season." Rosas noted how bad things are in Michoacán. Unemployment is high, and in the countryside, where most jobs are, people are making 50 pesos a day, about $4.75.
Antonio Ayala, a lettuce picker who has worked for D'Arrigo for 14 years, has seen his wages go from $7.00 an hour to $6.50 an hour. "We have to support the union, because with the union we fought for and won a medical plan and other benefits."
Mireya Gómez, a student at Cabrillo College participating in the march stated, "My parents and I worked in the fields, and with all the injustices going on, everyone's participation is very important. This is much deeper than just celebrating the life of César Chávez, we are here to address the issues that farmworkers face everyday and learn how to fight back."
Indiana poultry strikers win a contract at Tyson
CORYDON, Indiana - The members of United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) Local 227 on strike at the Tyson Foods poultry
processing plant here ended their strike March 25 amid many
cheers, hugs, and handshakes. The contract was ratified 191 to
61.
After buying the plant as part of its acquisition of Hudson Foods in 1998, Tyson demanded 21 cuts in benefits and work rules. The company was forced to back down in face of the strike, which lasted 82 days and won support from other workers in the area.
The new agreement includes a pay increase, dental and vision care, and other new benefits. All workers will retain their jobs. The contract does include some concessions. Paid breaks will be phased out in exchange for biannual bonuses over the life of the contract, double-time pay for Sunday work is eliminated, and the probation period is extended from 46 to 60 days.
After the vote was announced, workers caravaned to the picket line to celebrate there.
Michigan nurses strike over wages, conditions
MONROE, Michigan - Sixty-one workers at the Mercy Memorial
Hospital Nursing Center went on strike March 25 over wages and
working conditions.
The strikers, members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 157, voted unanimously for strike action. They maintain the picket lines 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, with every striker doing a daily four-hour shift.
The nurse's aides, housekeepers, cooks, and laundry workers at the 70-patient center are the only unionized workers at any Mercy Memorial facility in this southeast Michigan town.
Kathy Bussell, a nurses aide who has worked at the center for four years, explained, "We want $.75. [That's] $.25 in each year of the contract. We only make $7.41 an hour. The company said they would give us the money if we gave up premium pay for working over 40 hours and on holidays."
The pickets explained that they are paid low wages as it is, and that unionized nurses aides at a nursing home in Frenchtown, just north of Monroe, make $8.08 an hour.
On top of the low pay, workers volunteer their days off with no pay to accompany patients on field trips.
The company has had special lighting installed and has brought in special 24-hour security, a first at the center. Mercy is already advertising for strike replacement workers in local newspapers. A nurses aide needs two weeks' training before they can work with residents. Mercy is the only nursing home in the area that pays workers while they train, so strikers have told people who are interested to take the class, get paid, and go to work for one of the company's competitors.
The bosses have refused to negotiate with the unionists who walked out. Bussell explained that a doctor who visits patients at the center told the pickets a manger said they don't have to negotiate because "the strikers are all women and will get tired and come back."
Bussell said her response is: "It's getting warmer so it will just get easier to walk the picket line."
On the picket line, a resident was leaving with members of his family and described theconditions inside the nursing home. He reported the place was badly understaffed. Only two people were working the second floor where he lives. Strikers reported that normal Saturday staffing would have been two nurses and five aides.
The labor movement in the area has supported the strike. An April 3 solidarity event drew "a couple hundred people and they also picketed the hospital," Bussell said. Others on the picket line said members of UAW Local 723 at a nearby Ford plant have helped staff the lines. After a 70-year-old striker was hit with a tomato thrown from a passing car, the picketing by other trade unionists has stepped up, especially from workers getting off the afternoon shift. The day these reporters first visited the picket lines, locked-out Detroit newspapers and UAW members from the Detroit area made the 40-mile trip to show solidarity.
Bernie Senter and Francisco Picado in San Francisco; Jim Horn, a member of the UFCW in Louisville, Kentucky; Manuel González in Santa Cruz, California; and Marty Ressler and John Sarge in Detroit contributed to this column.