Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

3/9/01 News Report -- San Jose Mercury News

Six years and numerous legal skirmishes after it renewed efforts to organize strawberry workers, the United Farm Workers of America union Thursday signed its first major contract in the industry.

The grower -- Watsonville-based Coastal Berry Co. -- has 1,000 acres of strawberries in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties and an additional 400 acres around Oxnard in Ventura County. Coastal Berry is the nation's largest strawberry grower.

The contract, however, covers only its approximately 750 workers in Oxnard. Coastal Berry's 1,200 employees in Northern California are covered under a contract with an independent trade union.

"The contract . . . gives the UFW its first major stake in California's $600-million-a-year strawberry industry," union president Arturo Rodriguez said in a telephone press conference in Los Angeles.

Rodriguez called the contract the best package in the industry and said it should serve as a model for other labor contracts in agriculture.

The UFW contract provides a company-paid medical and dental plan covering workers and their families in the United States and in Mexico. The contract also provides six paid holidays, life insurance, job security, a seniority system and a grievance procedure.

The contract provides an average wage increase from 7 percent to 15 percent over three years, depending on job classification. For example, workers who do general labor will receive a 50-cent raise to $6.75 an hour, while Coastal's pickers, most of them immigrants from Mexico, will earn $8.50 to $10 an hour, up from a maximum of $8.25.

David Gladstone, chairman of Coastal Berry, said it's difficult to compare the UFW contract with the one won by the farmworker committee in Watsonville. Wages are slightly higher in the north, but benefits are superior in Ventura County.

"Workers in Ventura County," he said, "enjoy more guarantees in job security, seniority and grievance procedures."

Renewed efforts

Early last decade, the UFW made inroads into the strawberry industry, winning two representational elections. But growers refused to negotiate contracts, in some cases plowing under crops.

The union renewed its efforts in 1995 in Coastal Berry's Northern California fields, but ran into resistance from growers and workers alike. Controversy nullified the results of three elections in 1998 and 1999 that pitted the UFW against the workers committee.

Finally, last May the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board certified each to represent one segment of the Coastal Berry labor force.

Rodriguez said UFW unionization efforts next will be directed toward other strawberry workers in Southern California. But he didn't rule out attempts to recruit workers in the north.

Ventura County is the fastest growing strawberry-producing region in the state.

Coastal Berry grows 11 percent of the strawberries eaten in the United States, Gladstone said, with 5 percent being produced by UFW workers.

The company has 700 to 750 workers in Ventura County and slightly more in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, he said. No Coastal Berry worker lacks union representation, he said.

The UFW's only other contract in the strawberry industry came in 1998 when a handful of Swanton Berry Farms in Santa Cruz County came under the union flag. Swanton is the nation's largest producer of organic strawberries.

Persuading others

Rodriguez said his union hoped to use the Coastal Berry contract to pressure other strawberry growers to improve wages and benefits, as well as to persuade other strawberry workers to join the union.

Mercury News wire services contributed to this report.