In a hit piece mailing the week before the March 3 Los Angeles municipal elections, Gerawan Farming Inc., a giant Fresno-based tree fruit and table grape grower, spent more than $12,000 accusing L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson of “disrespecting Mexican-American votes.” Yet last spring, Gerawan supported the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidacy of Tim Donnelly, founder of the Minuteman anti-immigrant group formed to hunt down people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Gerawan was angry that Wesson backed a unanimous Oct. 22, 2014 City Council resolution urging the company to implement a state-issued union contract providing its thousands of workers millions of dollars in higher pay and other benefits. The Los Angeles Times ran a Feb. 26, 2015 news story with the headline, “L.A. City Council president blasts ‘smear’ mailers by Fresno grower”: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gerawan-wesson-mailers-20150226-story.html The mailer included a quote from Silvia Lopez, the worker UFW believes was selected by the Gerawan family to lead what state prosecutors have said is an illegal company supported campaign to decertify, or get rid of, the United Farm Workers at Gerawan. (See: http://www.ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=gerawan_legal&b_no=15722&page=1&field=&key=&n=12 ) For the mailer, see: http://www.ufw.org/pdf/herbwesson.pdf
But last spring, Silvia Lopez posed for this photo with then-GOP candidate for governor Tim Donnelly, proudly holding up a “DONNELLY FOR GOVERNOR” bumper sticker. For photo, see: http://www.ufw.org/pdf/SylviaLopezTimDonnelly.pdf
Wesson told the Times he was “absolutely livid” and called the mailer, paid for by Gerawan as an independent expenditure, “a crock of B.S.” UFW President Arturo Rodriguez called the hit piece a “racist attack [and] a further example of [Gerawan’s] disrespect for our community.”
– end –