June 16, 1998
Salinas 2nd Central Coast city to back UFW’s strawberry workers’ organizing campaign
Salinas become the second major Monterey Bay city to embrace the United Farm Workers’ strawberry workers organizing drive when the City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday on a resolution presented by pickers from a major Salinas-area berry company.
With more than 100 strawberry workers and supporters packing their chambers, City councilmembers enacted a resolution "endors[ing] the right of strawberry workers to organize for a better life." The measure also backed the Central Coast chapter of the National Strawberry Commission for Workers’ Rights (NSCWR).
The city of Santa Cruz also recently endorsed the UFW’s campaign to help berry workers improve their lives and joined the NSCWR, which was formed in 1996 to back organizing rights for berry workers. The Central Coast chapter boasts a diverse array of more than 80 community organizations and individuals.
The Council resolution was proposed by workers from Salinas Berry Farms, which which contracts with the giant Driscoll strawberry corporation. Passage of the measure is significant since the current UFW effort among strawberry pickers was sparked by an August 1995 strike by 450 pickers at VCNM Farms, another large Salinas strawberry firm.
After VCNM Farms workers voted 332-50 for the UFW in a state-supervised secret ballot election, the company plowed under a portion of its berry crop. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board, controlled by political appointees of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, issued a complaint charging the grower with illegally retaliating against its employees. VCNM settled the legal action in March 1996 by agreeing to pay pickers $113,000 in lost wages. Still, by then VCNM had became the fifth California strawberry grower to shut down operations after workers voted for the UFW.
The UFW cites this history of retaliation when it calls on strawberry industry leaders such as Driscoll to agree to remain neutral while workers employed by its growers organize and prepare for union elections.
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