University of California

8/19/97 News Report -- New York Times 

WENATCHEE, Wash. -- The apples from one of the world's most bounteous fruit-producing regions are nearly ripe. The economy is flush. And an army of low-wage workers who pick and pack the crop is stirring for change.

For organized labor, it all adds up to the kind of membership drive that would have been unheard of in previous years.

In what may be the largest unionizing effort under way in the nation, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is aiming at a class of workers it used to ignore and, with its former rival, the United Farm Workers of America, is trying to revive a sagging union presence.

It is part of a national drive to increase membership and court public support for people left out of the economic boom.

In the 40,000 fruit pickers and 15,000 warehouse workers who are the backbone of Washington state's $1 billion annual apple crop, labor leaders say they have perfect candidates for the new campaign. Most of the apple workers earn barely a few dollars above minimum wage.

After years of shrinking membership in a farm workers union built primarily in California, most of the nation's two million farm workers and packing house employees are not affiliated with unions.

But labor leaders have opened two fronts in their new drive. They are trying to unionize 20,000 workers in the California strawberry industry at the same time they move into Washington's apple orchards.

Both efforts are part of a broader campaign symbolized by the strike at United Parcel Service to enhance labor's influence with low-end workers.

"We have a whole new attitude about organizing," said Rich Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, who was in Washington state last week to assist the unionizing effort in the apple orchards and packing houses. "We're reaching out to everyone from the top to the bottom."

In the West the Teamsters have taken charge of the effort to unionize warehouse workers, who sort and ship the fruit, while the Farm Workers are trying to bring the pickers into the union fold. The top ranks of the labor movement, from the Farm Workers union president, Arturo Rodriguez, to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, have led rallies in the apple country.

The growers say their business is largely a family industry, reliant upon low-wage entry workers, with a narrow profit margin and variables of climate and price. A large-scale unionizing effort, like the one under way this summer, could radically change the industry and hurt many orchardists, they say.

A boycott or strike could cripple the growers in the brief season when a harvest of 40 billion pounds of apples is picked in Washington. But the strongest leverage, for labor, may be the fact that the state best known for producing software and airplanes now has an acute labor shortage, especially at the low end of the wage scale.

"We have record-low unemployment in this state and it has become a very competitive business trying to hold on to the best people," said Mike Gempler, executive director of the Washington Growers League, which represents the orchard industry.

The very threat of union membership may already have had an effect. A recent memorandum to growers from the Washington Farm Bureau, which represents agricultural interests, suggested paying as high a wage as possible as one way to thwart union activity.

"Praise employees for their work," it said. "If necessary, increase wages and benefits."

Competitive it may be, but the business of picking and processing fruit has remained a low-wage industry. On average, warehouse workers work about 10 months a year and make about $7.50 an hour, a wage that, adjusted for inflation, has not changed in more than 10 years.

In the fields, apple harvesters make $8 to $9 for picking a 1,000-pound bin of fruit, and work pruning the trees in the off-season. A fast worker can fill five or so bins in a day.

Though the unions have not asked for a specific contract, one goal is to increase wages by as much as 50 percent, an increase that growers say would devastate them.

Labor leaders are taking an unusual tack in trying to organize the apple industry. They have not specifically requested that packing houses or farm fields hold a vote on whether or not workers can join a union, as is usually done. Instead, they are asking for a contract first, and will then ask for a federally sanctioned vote on union membership.

The unions are afraid to call for open elections, the growers contend, saying that most field and warehouse workers do not want to join unions. They accuse labor of taking a backdoor approach at gaining a huge number of new, dues-paying members.

For the United Farm Workers, for example, bringing the apple pickers into the union would more than double the membership, now around 20,000 workers, most in California. The Teamsters, with 1.8 million members, would gain a new type of worker, but the addition would not greatly increase membership, at first.

For the Teamsters, the apple campaign is also an opportunity to make inroads into the Hispanic community. The overwhelming majority of farm workers in this state are from Mexico, though most now live year round in Washington state. Nationwide, women and members of minorities are the fastest-growing segment of new union membership.

The national Teamsters leadership has included several Spanish-speaking members among the dozen or so representatives sent to Washington.

"We want all of our organizations to reflect the new work force of America," Trumka said.

It is a long way from the early 1970s, when the AFL-CIO leaders said they did not want low-end agricultural workers in their federation, and they feuded with the Farm Workers, then led by Cesar Chavez, who died in 1993. Now the two unions are working closely together in the apple campaign, joined by members of the Roman Catholic clergy and some Democratic politicians.

The apple growers say the union effort is driven by outsiders, and is little more than an effort to flex union muscle after years of decline.

"This is not something that's homegrown," Gempler said. "It is a pretty classic campaign from the outside."

Inside some of the bigger fruit-packing warehouses, where apples are stored in year-round compartments, it is difficult to gauge sentiment, because no votes have been taken.

Pedro Navarrete, a 46-year-old father of seven children, works at two jobs, sorting fruit during a swing shift, then getting up early during the harvest to pick. After 25 years in the industry, Navarrete said he made less money now than when he started, and for that reason, he favors the union.

"I get home at 1 a.m. and then get up at 4 a.m.," Navarrete said. "I would like to see us at least get a raise and some benefits."

Only a handful of the packing plants offer medical benefits; the employees usually have to pay part of the cost of insurance, not an uncommon arrangement but in this case few workers can afford it. Workers also contend that plants are unsafe, and they point to a recent carbon monoxide leak at a packing house in the small town of Brewster, north of here. The leak sent nearly 100 people to a hospital.

After 10 years at the same fruit-packing plant in Wenatchee, Jorja Starr said she made only 90 cents an hour more than someone hired this year.

"In 1988, I grossed $11,770," Ms. Starr said. "In 1996, I earned $14,000 and this increase was mostly due to increasing full-time work. Not a lot to look forward to."

At the same time, revenues in the apple industry have tripled over 10 years, to $1 billion for the state.

Growers say the increase is due to more farmers growing more apples. The profit margin has not increased in most years, they say. The big money being made in the apple industry, both sides agree, is by retailers, whose share is better than 50 percent of the consumer price of an apple. Washington provides 60 percent of the nation's apples.

Granting apple packers a 50 percent raise, said a Teamster spokesman, Patrick Lacefield, would add only 2.4 cents per pound to the price of apples to consumers.

Growers say wage increases would come from their revenues, forcing many of them to lose money.

If labor leaders succeed in their apple campaign, they plan to apply the tactics used Washington and in the California strawberry fields to other agricultural sectors. But Washington is different from other regions; it is a state with a long labor tradition and an economy that was booming well before the rest of the country recovered from economic downturns.

Labor leaders say they do not plan, at this time, to call for a strike or a boycott of Washington apples. Instead, they are courting public opinion.

At the same time, the AFL-CIO has started running television advertisements designed to improve the public perception of unions.

The $5 million advertising campaign, which began in Seattle last week and will run in selected cities around the country, shows women and members of minorities, amid patriotic trappings, espousing the benefits of union membership.

Union membership, nationwide, hit a high of 36 percent of the work force in 1945, and fell to a low of 14.5 percent last year.