More than 400 striking cannery workers and their supporters had just marched from the Snokist fruit canning plant across the Yakima River bridge near Wal-Mart and back past the plant, shouting their support for the strike. Passersby honked and waved in solidarity along the busy streets. Marchers then returned to the lot across the street from the main entrance to the Snokist plant for a rally and barbecue to celebrate.

Protesters included Teamsters from the area’s Del Monte plant, who pack and ship asparagus; members of Yakima Valley College Federation of Teachers (YVCFT) Local 1485; United Farm Workers members from the Chateau Ste. Michelle vineyard; union nurses from Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital; and Yakima city employees who are members of AFSCME Local 1122.

On November 12, about 175 people turned out for an evening picket line, organized by Community Members for the Snokist Strikers. Gail Pearlman, an organizer of the group, who teaches English at Yakima Community College in Grandview, told the Militant the group organized the expanded picket line “to make it clear the strike has community support.” Pearlman said that she and another teacher had invited strikers to their classes to explain why they walked out.

Snokist workers, members of Western Council of Industrial Workers (WCIW) Local 3023, have been on the picket line since September 23 to win their first contract, health benefits, no more cutbacks, wage increases, and the reinstatement of all the strikers. Workers won union recognition at the plant in 2002.

Snokist, a fruit canning and distributing company owned by growers, said it has eliminated a number of jobs since the walkout. The cannery workers rejected the bosses’ last offer after the company announcement, and continued the strike.

Production and maintenance workers joined WCIW two years ago after Snokist terminated all health-care benefits, fired production workers, and rehired some of them at $2 to $3 an hour less than before. The bosses have also been employing temporary workers through the Barrett Business Services Inc., a job agency known here as BBSI.

John Parks, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 760, which organizes the 230 workers at the Del Monte plant, told the Militant it was a “big victory” when the National Labor Relations Board ruled workers placed at Grandview Foods, a frozen-fruit processing plant, by BBSI were also employees of Grandview Foods. Production and maintenance workers there voted 97-4 to join the Teamsters. Parks reported the Teamsters now have a written agreement from Grandview Foods that at the end of carrot season the company will stop using the temp agency. BBSI is supplying Snokist with scabs during the strike.

Six members of the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán (MEChA) chapter at Eisenhower High School in nearby Yakima joined the march and helped to lead the chants. Monserrat Mendoza, a sophomore and president of the chapter, told the Militant after the demonstration, “I thought it was great that there were signs in English and in Spanish, and that the march showed that it’s not just Mexicans who are involved.”

Mendoza said her group came to support the Snokist strikers because “our program calls for us to move against those forces that deny us freedom and justice. Snokist is denying them a contract, health and retirement benefits.” Mendoza also said it was important for students and other youth to support the strike today because what Snokist is doing now, “the next day it could happen to one of us. It’s important to see that this could affect us in the future.”

At the end of the rally, Mendoza exchanged numbers with organizers of the strike to continue the solidarity work. She said she will work to get more students from Eisenhower to the picket line in the future.

“We have only one common enemy and that’s the employers,” Mike Pieti, executive secretary of the WCIW, told the concluding rally. “They try to pit workers against each other and try to get us to resort to violence. We won’t do that.”

Other speakers at the rally included long-time farmworker and packinghouse worker organizers Tomás Villanueva, Guadalupe Gamboa, Gerardo Ríos, and Anna Guzman. All encouraged the strikers to continue their fight against Snokist. “You will never be alone while you fight to enjoy a fair and just contract,” Villanueva said.

After the rally, people lined up for barbecue at a big grill brought over by the Teamsters and listened to music from a Yakima mariachi band. Teamsters and other supporters of the strikers also brought turkeys for Thanksgiving dinners. As the end of the shift at the plant grew closer, people began picking up picket signs saying, “Let’s walk.”

One of the Snokist strikers organizes financial and other support for the temporary workers who refused to cross the picket line. A number of these workers picket regularly with WCIW members.

WCIW organizer Rogelio Montes said the Western Council has been reaching out for solidarity. According to Montes, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Seattle told the WCIW that the owners of a shipping company are angry because longshore workers had refused to load a shipment of Snokist cherries to Australia.

As this issue goes to press, Snokist has refused to resume negotiations with the union.  
 
 
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