Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

10/28/99 News Report -- Associated Press

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- A state labor panel will hear arguments on whether violence and other intimidation swayed workers to vote in favor of an upstart union at the nation's largest strawberry grower.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board will also investigate whether promises of higher hourly and holiday pay were used to entice the workers to vote against the United Farm Workers at Coastal Berry Co. in Watsonville.

Antonio Barbosa, the ag board's executive secretary, ordered a Dec. 7 hearing in Salinas. On Oct. 14, he issued a report holding that nearly half of the UFW's 234 objections to the election warrant further review.

The UFW, which is challenging the landmark victory this summer by the Coastal Berry of California Farmworkers Committee, shoulders the burden of proving misconduct and showing that it changed the outcome of the election.

UFW spokesman Mark Grossman said the union is prepared to prove the allegations but also recognizes "there's a high hurdle for overturning an election.''

James Gumberg, an attorney representing the rival union, said the UFW is trying to drag out the process, unable to accept foregone defeat. For example, the UFW asked for six weeks to respond to Barbosa's report, an extension of the normal five-day window, he said.

"Of course, the board grants them another month,'' he said. "They're trying to delay the inevitable.''

The alternative Farmworkers Committee union won the right to represent workers at Oxnard-based Coastal Berry in June. The final tally after a runoff election was 725-616 with 19 unresolved ballots.

The UFW had been trying to unionize Coastal Berry for several years in hopes of building momentum for union contracts throughout the state's $600 million, 20,000-worker strawberry industry.

The UFW and its new rival agreed the dispute would linger long after the election, which cannot be certified until the objections are resolved.

In his 100-page order, Barbosa questioned whether an "atmosphere of fear and coercion'' was created by threats and actual violence to an extent that compromised workers' right to choose.

He recalled a rally before the first election in 1998, asking whether it was staged by anti-UFW workers to isolate those who were not sympathetic to the upstart union "by threatening them and actually engaging in violent acts.''

That rally was broken up by Santa Cruz County deputies using pepper-spray. The man who would emerge as president of the new union, truck driver Jose Guadalupe Fernandez, was arrested for hitting pro-UFW workers. In all, five workers and two deputies were injured.

Among the other allegations Barbosa recommended for further review were whether workers who supported UFW were blacklisted, told their jobs were in jeopardy and excluded from employee raffles.

The UFW also alleges that workers were promised 10 cents more an hour and bigger holiday pay as inducements to vote for the new union.

Gumberg acknowledged -- without being specific -- that some of the objections do warrant a hearing, he characterized the allegations of violence and intimidation as "old news.''

"They have nothing to do with the outcome of this election,'' which he to described as 'squeaky clean'.''