For Release: March 28, 1998
UFW replies to false claims Driscoll strawberry workers are ‘free from discrimination’ & abuse’
The United Farm Workers has responded to claims on the March 28 PR Newswire from the Driscoll strawberry corporation "that Driscoll strawberries are produced in a working environment that is safe, fair and free from discrimination or harassment for all employees," according to Driscoll President Ken Morena. United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez issued the following statement from the Watsonville, Calif. headquarters of the union’s strawberry workers organizing campaign:
Last year, the UFW helped berry workers file three major federal class action lawsuits against growers who contract with Driscoll. They charged Driscoll growers with violating state and federal laws by:
* Forcing workers to labor "off the clock" without pay and failing to permit breaks;
* Engaging in alleged widespread sex discrimination against women strawberry workers; and
* Failing to provide full overtime pay to berry workers. Two of those lawsuits have been settled.
The UFW has filed legal actions under California’s Proposition 65 law accusing 10 Driscoll growers with failing to notify workers they were exposed to significant levels of the cancer-causing fungicide captan.
The state Agricultural Labor Relations Board is investigating charges against two Driscoll growers for intimidating and disciplining strawberry workers who supported the UFW.
In full page newspaper ads taken out in April 1997, Driscoll President Ken Morena declared that "all Driscoll growers provide toilets [and other sanitary facilities] for the comfort…of field workers and the protection" of consumers.
But on October 31, 1997, Mr. Morena sent letters to Driscoll growers in Oxnard citing "shocking" widespread field sanitation violations that were "an embarrassment to…the company."
Finally, the worst of the worst union-busting labor consultants, Stephen Highfill, who specializes in coercing and threatening farm workers, has been present at several Driscoll ranches.
This history is why we are asking Americans to support workers who pick for Driscoll growers as they organize a union to end abuse and discrimination.
Driscoll says it wants "fair, secret ballot elections under [California’s] Agricultural Labor Relations Act to determine once and for all whether the work force wants a union or not [emphasis added]." But what Driscoll doesn’t say is that after berry workers voted for the UFW at three large strawberry companies in recent years, the strawberry industry fired pickers, plowed under crops and shut down operations rather than bargain for union contracts.
* * *
Despite the stiff resistance berry pickers still face from Driscoll, America’s biggest strawberry corporation, workers made solid progress last year.
-Solely in response to UFW organizing, many growers offered modest pay raises and some benefits.
-Workers won $575,000 in back wages for being forced to work "off the clock" without pay after filing their own federal class action lawsuit with the union’s help.
-Workers who suffered discrimination for supporting the UFW won $40,000 in back pay.
-More than 30,000 marched for strawberry workers’ rights in Watsonville on April 13, 1997.
-More than 6,000 supermarkets across North America, including five of the seven largest retail food companies, endorsed berry workers’ rights.
-Coastal Berry Co., the nation’s largest direct employer of strawberry workers, pledged to remain neutral while pickers organize with the UFW.
– end –