For Release:
August 15, 1997
Friday, in Santa Cruz
All Santa Cruz-area natural food stores pledge support for UFW, strawberry workers’ rights
By Friday, all six natural food markets in the Santa Cruz/Capitola area will have formally endorsed basic rights for California’s 20,000 strawberry workers and pledged their support to the United Farm Workers’ ongoing Central Coast organizing campaign.
Food Bin, Stapleton’s and New Leaf Community Markets (with three stores) will announce their backing of strawberry worker rights that are the centerpiece of a major joint organizing drive sponsored by the UFW and the AFL-CIO. They will join Staff of Life Natural Foods Market and the Santa Cruz Lucky supermarket that have already signed similar pledges.
The seven Santa Cruz-area stores are among more than 3,000 food markets in 19 states and two Canadian provinces–including three out of the nation’s top 10 supermarket companies–that have taken a stand for strawberry workers rights, notes UFW co-founder and Secretary-Treasurer Dolores Huerta.
WHAT: Event endorsing rights for strawberry workers with New Leaf Community Markets co-owner Rex Stuart, Stapleton’s owner Dennis Morton, Rev. Ed Holterhoff from Holy Cross Catholic Church, UFW Secretary-Treasurer Dolores Huerta and strawberry workers.
WHERE: In the parking lot of New Leaf Community Markets, 1134 Pacific Ave. (at Soquel St.) in Santa Cruz.
WHEN: 12 noon, Friday, Aug.15, 1997.
With the pledge, the natural food stores endorse the right of strawberry pickers to organize and bargain under California’s farm labor law "in an environment free from fear and intimidation." The markets also agree to "require all of our venders to abide by the applicable laws and regulations governing such conditions and conduct, and [to] encourage the strawberry industry, including its largest corporations, Driscoll Strawberry Associates Inc. and Naturipe Inc., to recognize these basic rights."
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