Aug. 7, 1998
Nearly 400 D’Arrigo workers continue walkouts; harvesting halted as more strikebreakers leave fields Friday
Nearly 400 workers–about the same number as yesterday–continued Friday to brave company threats of being fired for refusing to return to their jobs at D’Arrigo Bros. vegetable fields. Workers are using the Salinas Valley walkouts to protest the grower’s failure to bargain in good faith for a union contract 23 years after field laborers voted for the United Farm Workers.
In rapini fields near Greenfield early this morning, 30 strikebreakers joined picketlines after listing to appeals to support the work stoppage. Some 200 srikebreakers imported by D’Arrigo heeded similar appeals on Thursday. The workers have so far been successful in stopping D’Arrigo from replacing them, reports UFW Vice President Efrén Barajas.
On Wednesday, the company has issued an ultimatum for workers to go back to their jobs or risk being fired. The UFW says those threats amount to illegal retaliation for engaging in union activity.
In the largest job action to hit Salinas Valley vegetable fields since a bitter 1979 strike, most of D’Arrigo’s 900 farm workers walked off their jobs Wednesday demanding the grower bargain in good faith to produce a contract. D’Arrigo grows brocoli, cauliflower, onions, rapini and mixed lettuce in fields stretching from Castroville to Greenfield.
Today the UFW is filing unfair labor practice charges against D’Arrigo with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. They charge the company with bad faith bargaining and making unilateral changes in working conditions without bargaining with the union. Three bargaining sessions have been held since last May when workers once again began pressing D’Arrigo for progress in negotiations. But the company has refused to provide the union with a contract proposal. The UFW presented D’Arrigo with a complete union proposal on June 9.
In other unfair labor practice charges, the UFW accuses D’Arrigo with importing labor contractor Blaz Packing to perform work in its lettuce, broccoli and mixed lettuce fields. Such conduct violates the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which requires employers to negotiate with the workers’ certified bargaining representative–in this case the UFW–before implementing major changes in working conditions.
D’Arrigo workers voted for the UFW in a state-conducted secret ballot election held in 1975, shortly after the farm labor law took effect. Current worker grievances include low pay, no pension plan, job security or seniority protections, no grievance and arbitration procedure, and a company medical plan that workers can’t afford to use due to costly out-of-pocket expenses.
D’Arrigo employs some 900 work in the Salinas Valley area.
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