Retired farm worker to get $43,000 pension check from UFW Secty.-Treas. Tanis Ybarra; others may not know about union benefits

Among the many achievements by United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez was creation in the 1970s of the nation’s first–and only–functioning pension plan for farm laborers. More than seven years after Chavez’s death, UFW Secretary-Treasurer Tanis Ybarra will hand a pension check for $43,323 to retired farm worker Plutarco Covarrubias during a ceremony Friday morning in Parlier.
 
Covarrubias, 81, was not aware he was eligible for pension benefits from the Juan de la Cruz Farm Workers Pension Fund. In addition to the lump sum payment, he will receive $251.50 per month from the joint union-management pension plan for the rest of his life. He resides in Mexico but family members live in Reedley.
 
The UFW also hopes to use the event to spread the word to other retired farm workers in the U.S. and Mexico who, like Covarrubias, don’t know they qualified for pensions when they worked under union contract. Covarrubias labored under a UFW contract over nine years, between 1975 and 1983, for a unionized Central Valley grape grower. He retired from farm work in 1984.
 
Since 1989, the pension plan–which is funded by contributions from growers for every hour worked under UFW contract–has provided cost-of-living increases and other adjustments and bonuses. The pension plan was named for Juan de la Cruz, a 60-year old farm worker striker shot to death on a Kern County vineyard picketline in 1973. Chavez died on April 23, 1993.
 
Who:  UFW Secretary-Treasurer Tanis Ybarra, pension plan Administrator Douglas L. Blaylock, retired union member Plutarco Covarrubias and members of his family from the Central Valley. (A son who will be present speaks English.)
 
What: Presenting Covarrubias with a $43,323 check from the union pension plan begun by Cesar Chavez.
 
When: 10 a.m., Friday, Jan. 26, 2001.
 
Where: Salandini apartment complex’s community center, 13785 E. Manning, in Parlier.
 
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***   Anyone who worked under UFW contract five years or longer should call the pension office at (800) 321-6607 or write to the Juan De La Cruz Farmworkers Pension Fund, P.O. Box 36, Keene, CA 93531.