BY FRANCISCO RIVERA
SALINAS, California - Some 600 members and supporters of the United Farm Workers (UFW) marched in this city August 9 demanding a union contract for the 900 employees of D'Arrigo Bros., a large vegetable grower in California. "Huelga, huelga," (strike!) chanted the workers and their families throughout a section of east Salinas. "We want health care, we want a pension plan," they also demanded. The next day they went on strike.

The workers at D'Arrigo voted to join the UFW in 1975, but have been unable to get a contract from the owners in the past 23 years. The walkout ended August 28.

"Join us. Join the march!" farm workers called out to people in this proletarian community. Many did pick up the UFW flags -a black eagle on red background - and joined the action.

One of those joining was Francisco Lara, 72, who was an active member of the UFW during the battles that founded the union in the 1960s and worked for 20 years at the Sun Harvest Co. before retiring. Jesús Bernal, also a local resident and UFW supporter, commented that it is "noticeable that there is more willingness to get involved" in labor struggles today.

In addition to a large contingent of D'Arrigo Bros. workers, there were grape pickers from the J&L company who recently got their contract renewed, as well as mushroom pickers from a couple of different farms.

There was also a sizable contingent of workers from the Coastal Berry Farms, currently fighting a battle for union re presentation despite the violent attacks of a pro-company outfit call the Coastal Berry Organizing Committee. After the march, representatives of workers from various farms express solidarity with the D'Arrigo strikers.

Longtime UFW leader Dolores Huerta told participants that the struggle at D'Arrigo was a fight "for all farm workers in this valley."

María Ramírez and Apolonia Jiménez, who have been picking iceberg lettuce at the D'Arrigo farm in Salinas for three and five years respectively, described some of the working conditions at the farm. "Although the sanitary conditions are a little better, the company still does not give us gloves to work," said Ramírez. "When it rains they give us a trash bag that doesn't cover our whole bodies and when it stops raining, they take the trash bag back, can you believe it?"

"More importantly," said Jiménez, "we are not getting paid for overtime after eight hours of work," unlike the pickers of other produce on the same farm.

Company moves to cut wages
Arturo Jímenez, a young mustard greens picker at D'Arrigo for the past three years, has worked on different farms in the Salinas Valley for the past decade. Jiménez travels every year between Jalisco, Mexico, and Salinas, California. "The company has been taking more than what it use to," he said. "Years ago the lettuce pickers use to get paid more than $3 a box with a guaranteed minimum of $7 an hour. Now they pay $2.70 per box, and the guaranteed minimum is only $6 dollars an hour." On top of that, now the lettuce has to be bunched as it is picked, an operation that had been done separately by other workers.

Rodrigo Ceja, another mustard picker at D'Arrigo for the past five years told the Militant how the latest round of the fight for a contract broke out. "The company introduced `U-2' machines to pick the mustard [greens] for the first time. We were willing to experiment for a while to negotiate a price, given the change." The "U-2" is a conveyor belt that drives along the edge of the edge of the field where the workers place the boxes of picked produce. In the case of lettuce, it takes 25 experienced workers to keep the machine busy, and some 40 workers in the case of the mustard greens. In addition, one worker operates the machine and a loader places the packed produce on the shipping truck.

"Now the company wants us to pay for the wages of the operator and the loader," explained Jiménez.

"Instead of getting paid for the boxes that one picks, the company wants to divide the total of what is picked, packed, and loaded equally among everyone, operator, and loader included."

Strikers say: `support our fight'
Jiménez said the entire workforce at D'Arrigo staged a two- day walkout starting August 5, but bosses told the mustard green pickers that they were fired. D'Arrigo Bros. bosses started hiring independent contractors to bring in workers to handle all the crops. The unionists protested and demanded that the company sit down and negotiate a contract. They have been explaining their struggle to the workers brought by the contractors, and asking them to join the fight.

On August 10, some 250 workers organized contingents at every entrance of a lettuce field of D'Arrigo Bros. in Salinas. By 5:30 a.m. red and black UFW flags were flying along the public road closest to the field. A large contingent of farm workers called on workers that had been bused in by a contractor to come out and join the fight. The 45 or so scabs had been brought in with the help of about a dozen members of the local Sheriff department.

Once off the buses, a discussion broke out among the workers in the field and 20 minutes later a contingent of 25 workers came out to the cheers and warm reception of the unionists. Another 15 came out a little while later, despite the intimidating efforts of supervisors, who drove around the field in the company's white trucks.

The remaining five workers came out a little later when it became clear there was not going to be much happening in that field that morning. They got just as warm a reception from the pickets as the first groups.

Scouts arrived shortly to report that there was not much production at other D'Arrigo fields that morning.

The strikers left a contingent at the lettuce field, since it was still early in the day. Other unionists drove the workers who walked out to their cars, and many more were organized to picket other D'Arrigo fields.

In a phone interview, Rodrigo Ceja said that five workers were arrested by the sheriff's department on August 11, bringing the total arrested to 12 by that date. He also reported that the D'Arrigo management was successful in getting a court injunction that allow them to limit the number of pickets to 15 at the entrance of the field, and would only allow the UFW to contact workers in the company's fields during their breaks, in a ratio of one unionist to every 15 workers on a field.

UFW officials announced August 27 that they would end the walkout the next day as a sign of sympathy for the D'Arrigo family following the death of one of the bosses in an auto accident.

Contract negotiations are now scheduled to resume September 23.  
 
 
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