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WILLCOX, Arizona—Fed up with their working conditions, 250 tomato workers walked out of the hothouses and packing plants of Bonita Nurseries, Inc., a Eurofresh subsidiary, here November 12. They were soon joined by another 100 workers. The strikers, most of whom are Mexican, asked the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) to help and vowed to fight until the company recognized them as union.

The walkout was ignited by a new pay structure announced November 12 that would increase the workload for less pay. Two workers, Jesús García and Rito Gutiérrez, told Militant correspondents they spent all day explaining to company officials that the new work requirements were impossible to meet. When the company stated that those workers who could not keep up with the new pace should leave, García and Gutiérrez rallied the other workers to walk out.

Strikers said they are not allowed to go to the bathroom freely. They have to share drinking water bottles, which spreads illnesses. Temperatures inside range from 100 to 115 degrees. The work is year round and they have no holidays.

They also described abuse by the supervisors. Gutiérrez, 45, said when he fell from a cherry-picker and broke his leg, he was first refused a trip to the hospital. Then the company doctor told him he would have to continue picking tomatoes on crutches. "After all, you still have one good leg," he said.

One woman reported that after she fell off a ladder and hurt herself, the supervisor worried only about the plants she fell on, reproaching her that "a tomato plant is worth more than a Mexican worker."

About 80 of the workers at Bonita Nurseries are prisoners from nearby Fort Grant State Prison, who receive $2 an hour.

Strikers said Eurofresh began hiring replacement workers right after the strike started.

During the strike dozens of Graham County police cars were parked beside the company's main gate. On Thursday, November 18, a regular payday, about 150 strikers accompanied by four UFCW representatives went inside the plant gate to demand their pay checks.

Sheriff's deputies tried to lock the strikers inside and called for backup. They arrested the four UFCW representatives and an Arizona Daily Star reporter on charges of trespassing and inciting to riot.

Company officials finally brought the checks and a letter rescinding the change in work plan that triggered the strike. The CEO said he would like to meet with the strikers Monday morning inside the plant to hear their concerns.

About 200 strikers rallied outside Eurofresh property that day with UFCW representatives, refusing to go inside to meet with the CEO without union representation. Eurofresh claimed 70 to 80 strikers returned to work. The workers later decided to return together, and were all back at work by Wednesday, November 24.

Union officials and tomato workers say 250 of 350 tomato workers signed union cards requesting an election for union representation.  
 

Flight attendants: 'We will strike' US Airways

CHAOS—Create Havoc Around Our System—is what the Association of Flight Attendants has dubbed actions their 9,000 members at US Airways will take if released from negotiations by the National Mediation Board. On November 22 the AFA asked the board to declare an impasse and begin a "30-day cooling-off period," which is required under the Railway Labor Act.

"Pay us or chaos," they chanted outside the airport here November 24. Some signs and one chant threatened, "We will strike!" If the mediation board were to respond in a timely and neutral manner, the 30-day period would expire at the end of December, when air travel is at its peak. But few observers predict that will happen.

Major issues for the flight attendants, who have been working under an expired contract nearly three years, are pay, pensions, and numerous other work and benefit items. They oppose the pay parity scheme, which would base rates on a formula of pay and benefits at other competing airlines. Three other major unionized work groups have now accepted this setup and company tops are pushing for the AFA to "get on the bandwagon."

Picketing the Los Angeles airport November 24, flight attendant Karin Morris told the Militant, "I've never seen our group so militant. People are ready to strike if necessary." Strike ballots have been sent out and will be counted by December 20, according to the AFA.

At the Philadelphia airport more than 50 flight attendants were joined by representatives of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1776, as well as by several members of Teamsters Local 107, which includes strikers at the Overnite Transportation terminal in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

Police and airport officials kept the pickets isolated at either end of the airport entrances.

"It's just like they do with us at the strike picket line," noted Teamster Jim Milligan. "What's happened to our rights?" Strikers in Bensalem have been continually harassed by the sheriff's department, including an order that they remove a lean-to they had put up to protect pickets from the cold.  
 

Montreal: paperworkers demand plant reopen

Chandler is a small community on the south shore of the Gaspé Peninsula, about 600 miles east of here. In June of this year Abitibi Consolidated closed its Chandler operation "temporarily." At the end of October it announced that the closing would be permanent. The move idled 600 workers in the plant and 100 forestry workers. Union members have also been holding rallies and marches in Chandler to protest the plant closure.

The action was organized by the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ) and its affiliate, the Communications, Energy, and Paper Workers Union (CEP), which represents workers at the Gaspésia mill.

Abitibi Consolidated, the world's largest manufacturer of newsprint paper, has seven factories in Quebec, employing 6,500 workers. A year ago workers at the Chandler plant were part of a three-month strike against Abitibi Consolidated that halted production at 10 mills in eastern Canada. The company threatened to close the Gaspésia mill in Chandler if the strike continued, but workers stayed out and the union eventually won a contract.

An FTQ statement distributed at the demonstration noted that for almost 100 years workers have been fighting the various companies that have owned the Gaspésia mill. The statement calls upon the company either to honor an agreement signed in March of this year to modernize the factory, or else sell it.

Union officials, the mayor of Chandler, and others addressed the crowd assembled outside Abitibi Consolidated's headquarters.

"It's a heavy blow," said Renaud Huard, a worker with 25 years seniority at the mill. "We're on unemployment now. Later on, it'll be welfare. There may be other jobs, but they don't pay well, and besides, they're not in town."

Nurses rally in N.Y. to demand more hiring

NEW YORK— Registered nurses at Saint Vincent's Hospital organize a two-hour rally here the night of November 22 to protest increased understaffing and the failure of the hospital administration to negotiate a contract that favorably addresses this issue. The nurses are members of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). The last contract between the hospital and NYSNA members expired February 15. The nurses say that they will soon vote whether to join NYSNA members at North Shore Hospital, in Plainview, Long Island, on strike.

The nurses there are also protesting understaffing and the resulting overwork and danger to patients' safety. "When I first came to the rehabilitation unit, there were five RN's; now it's been cut to three," said Ansell Horn, a nurse at Saint Vincent's for 13 years.

Nurses said that on some floors of the hospital there is only one registered nurse for 15 to 20 patients. Throughout the rally passersby stopped to take information being given out and to join the picket.

Betsy McDonald and Willie Cotton in Tucson, Arizona; Nancy Cole, a member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) in Philadelphia; Bob Cantrick, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, and Grant Hargrave, a member of the IAM, in Montreal; and Jason Corley in New York contributed to this column.  
 
 
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