The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.35           October 7, 1996 
 
 
Strawberry pickers demand contract  

BY NORTON SANDLER

WATSONVILLE, California-Carrying bright red United Farm Workers (UFW) flags, thousands marched through this predominantly Mexican and Chicano city September 15. They were demanding a union contract and improved wages and working conditions for farm workers who pick strawberries.

Contingents of agricultural workers in their early 20s and teens were noticeable in the crowd. Other workers marched with their entire families. The march also commemorated Mexican Independence day. Dozens of Mexican flags were scattered throughout the crowd. The seriousness and discipline of the participants was evident as UFW marshals, many of them young kept the crowd moving at a brisk pace, three to a row. The union said 7,000 people joined the march. Watsonville cops claimed that 4,500 marchers participated.

Scores also watched from street corners or hung out the windows of their houses and apartments as the two-hour long march wound through the streets of Watsonville's barrio chanting, "Sí se puede!" (Yes we can do it), "Viva la Raza," and "Chávez sí, Wilson no,"([union founder Cesar] Chávez yes, [California Governor Peter] Wilson no).

Participants gathered in a vacant lot for a rally following the demonstration. Featured speakers included UFW president Arturo Rodríguez, union secretary-treasurer Dolores Huerta, and California AFL-CIO executive secretary-treasurer Art Pulaski. Rodríguez was recently elected to a four-year term as union president. He had held the post temporarily following the death of his father-in-law Cesar Chávez in 1993.

Several strawberry workers addressed the crowd. "We're not asking for anything the growers can't give us," farm worker David Madríz explained. "We only want what we and our families deserve and what is right and just. We are human beings," he said.

Miguel, a strawberry field picker who did not give his last name, described to Militant reporters the challenges facing the union in trying to organize the 15,000 strawberry workers who pick the state's $650 million annual crop. "They [the bosses] try to disorganize us, they pick favorites, they give different pay to those they like, to get them to oppose the union," he said. "They make threats to union workers that we will be fired or deported. We need to be united."

"It's important to win this," said Gerardo, a 20-year UFW veteran currently working in the mushroom fields. "These workers can't support their families on this pay and the working conditions are terrible. You have to bend down all day. Only the young can do this."

"It's back-breaking," added Juán, also a union member. He explained that each individual strawberry has to be picked by hand from the two foot tall plants and that the berries are fragile. Estimates of the total number of farm workers in California today run as high as 1 million.

At its peak in 1970 the UFW had 80,000 members. Its membership now is in the range of 25,000, up 5,000 from a few years ago. In May, the union signed a contract with Bruce Church Inc., the distributors of Red Coach lettuce. This five- year contract, which covers some 400 workers, culminated an 18- year battle. The Watsonville/Salinas area is the heart of the California strawberry industry and the UFW's organizing drive began here last summer.

Strawberry workers get paid in the range of $8,000 a year for the six-day and up to 12-hours-per-day workweek during the March to October picking season. Most strawberry workers haven't seen a significant raise in a decade. The union is also demanding protection from arbitrary firings, clean drinking water and bathrooms in the fields, health insurance, and an end to sexual harassment of female workers.

The union is targeting the cooler companies that receive and refrigerate the berries once they are picked. These enterprises are responsible for setting prices and shipping and marketing the produce. According to the union, a handful of companies controls the industry and tells the growers what to do.

Two union organizers were beaten by thugs in June while trying to speak to workers at Gargiulo Farms near Watsonville. Gargiulo is owned by the chemical giant Monsanto.

Supporters of the UFW are beginning informational picketing at supermarkets in 50 cities. The union is not asking for a boycott of strawberries but is encouraging shoppers to sign pledge cards defending better conditions for farm workers.

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Growers demolish housing for farm workers
As the economic crisis in Mexico has deepened, more and more toilers come across the border seeking work. The growers in California have responded to an increased labor pool by trying to cut their housing and transportation costs. Particularly acute is the housing shortage for farm workers.

In the Salinas Valley alone, farm-worker housing fell 60 percent in the last two decades.

Travis Pitt, deputy director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development claims that each year there are "fewer and fewer migrant camps and more workers living in garages, under bridges, in chicken huts..."

Grower Manuel Cunha told the newspaper Fresno Bee that the demolition of housing by the employers stems from their having "had it with burdensome regulations, costs, and repairs of worker destruction."

As a result more of the smaller Central Valley towns and even larger cities like Fresno have become home to farm workers. "They live along canals, under trees, in garages," the Mayor of Parlier told the newspaper.

- N.S.  
 
 
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