Workers score key pay, health care gains in
UFW pact with biggest U.S. berry grower.
A new union contract announced Friday protecting pickers at the nation’s largest strawberry grower provides 1,650 employees of Coastal Berry Co. with the best pay and health care coverage for strawberry workers in California or the nation. United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez joins worker leaders from the firm owned by Dole Food Co. Inc. to celebrate the re-negotiated three-year agreement during an observance at 12 noon Friday in the union’s office, 920 So. “A” St., Oxnard 93030 (805-486-9674).
Coastal Berry employs 1,050 strawberry workers in the Watsonville region and 600 in Ventura County. Strawberries are currently being harvested in the Oxnard-Ventura area. Key farm worker gains under the new pact, the first negotiated with the UFW since Dole acquired Coastal Berry in October 2004, include the following:
• Most growers pay a general labor rate of $4.85 an hour plus 75¢ for each box picked. Under a unique group incentive program developed for the union contract at Coastal Berry, when workers in a crew pick an average of five boxes per hour each individual worker receives an additional 15¢, or a total of 90¢ per box. At six boxes per hour, workers receive an extra 20¢, or 95¢ per box. At seven boxes, they get another 25¢, or $1 per box. The group piece rate goes up to $1.20 per box after an average of 11 boxes an hour is reached. During the peak of the harvest season most workers will pick eight or nine boxes an hour; many pick 11 boxes an hour.
Under this group piece rate system, workers at Coastal Berry are averaging between $75 and $100, or 25% to 30%, more per week than pickers at other companies. Piece rates will go up from $4.85 per hour and 75¢ per box the first year to $4.92 and 76¢ the second year to $4.99 and 77¢ the yard year. After five boxes, the extra incentives kick in.
• The base rate for strawberry workers when they are laboring by the hour at most companies is from $6.75, the state minimum wage, to $7 an hour. At Coastal Berry under the new agreement it is $7.75 an hour, going up to $7.87 in the second year and $7.99 in the third.
• For the first time, the joint union-management Robert F. Kennedy Medical Plan will cover all members of workers’ immediate families with comprehensive medical, dental and vision benefits, paying 80% of the costs. This represents a big improvement over their previous health coverage.
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