Workers at Vlasic Farms in Evansville, organized as the Comité de Trabajadores de Campbell's Fresh (Committee of Workers at Campbell's Fresh, the former name of the company), filed for union representation in 1997. After union supporters lost the election by a 104–101 vote and the union filed unfair labor practices charges, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board (PLRB) ordered a new election, which the union won.

At the same time, workers at Blue Mountain Mushroom Company, in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania, carried out a unionizing campaign. Both Blue Mountain and Vlasic challenged the workers' right to organize on the grounds that they are not "industrial workers" but "agricultural workers" and thus not covered by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act (PLRA).

In July 1999, however, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court upheld the right of mushroom workers, who work indoors in a year-round industry, to unionize at both companies, rejecting the employers' argument that they are agricultural workers.

Last year Vlasic Farms was bought by Money's Mushrooms of Canada and filed for bankruptcy. Money's Mushrooms closed the plant and laid off all the workers in a effort to break the union.

The state Supreme Court decision upholding the Commonwealth Court ruling will encourage union organizing, according to Antonio Gutierres, president of the Vlasic mushroom workers union and a mushroom picker.

"I think this is going to have a great impact," Gutierres told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Before this, people were scared to organize because the owners said we didn't have the right to."

Luis Tlaseca, president of the mushroom workers union at Kaolin Farms and a picker for 17 years, welcomed the ruling and explained that they are still fighting to assert their rights as union members. In 1993, after a successful strike, the workers won a union. Tlaseca, along with other union activists, was fired by the company in retaliation. Last year Tlaseca won his job back.

"In Chester County over 5,000 workers pick mushrooms--including a growing number of women, who are now 3 to 4 percent of the workforce," said Tlaseca in an interview. "We have been fighting for years to get a contract. The recent ruling of the state Supreme Court is a victory for us." Tlaseca remarked that the decision encourages them to step up actions to keep the pressure on the growers until they get a contract.

Most of the mushroom workers in Chester County are Mexican-born. Kennett Square, the site of Kaolin Farms, holds nearly 80 fields that produce around 45 percent of the mushrooms consumed in the United States, and is known as the "mushroom capital of the world."

Michael Pia, president of Kaolin Farms, which employs 350 workers, sought to downplay the impact of the court ruling. He told the Inquirer, "The ruling basically puts things back where they were. It doesn't affect the way we do business."

Fidel Vásquez, 28, who has been a mushroom picker at Kaolin for seven years, is a delegate of the Mushroom Workers Union and member of the Farmworker Support Committee, known by its initials in Spanish, CATA. He told the Militant he welcomed the latest court ruling.

So did Carlos Díaz, vice-president of CATA and a union delegate. Díaz was a mushroom picker at Kaolin until he was injured on the job. He has been fighting for four years to get workers compensation for the serious injury to his knee. "Accidents like this happen often because of safety violations," said Díaz. "One time a worker fell at around 9:00 a.m. but the supervisors did not report the accident until 1:00 p.m."

Tlaseca said the safety violations and abusive treatment by the bosses at Kaolin continue nonstop. "That's why we need the contract, and that's our goal now," he said.  
 
 
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