Ex-Teamster Leader Bolsters Union’s Foes

One year ago, about 1,000 workers went on strike against Watsonville (Calif.) Canning Co., ending 37 years of labor peace. To many unions and union supporters around the nation, the company’s response to the strike by Teamsters Local 912 has become yet another symbol of ugly, union-busting tactics that more and more employers are using across the country in this anti-union era.

But the Watsonville Canning dispute has a strange, confusing twist to it:

Supporting the company is M. E. (Andy) Anderson, 62, who was one of the highest-ranking officers of the Teamsters Union until he was forced from office 30 months ago by Teamster President Jackie Presser in the aftermath of Presser’s successful bid for the presidency. At one point, Anderson himself was considered a viable contender for the post as head of the 1.8-million-member union, the nation’s largest.

Whatever Anderson’s motive may be for trying to give credence to the company’s actions, the result is that union members whom he once led are now being badly hurt by their former leader.

The company says that Anderson, who was a vice president of the international union and head of the 450,000-member Western Conference of Teamsters, is a labor relations consultant to the firm. “We felt that having Andy as part of our negotiating team made a lot of sense because of his knowledge of the union and our industry,” said Smiley Verduzco, the company’s executive vice president.

But union negotiators were stunned when they saw Anderson sitting with company officials at the last bargaining session a few weeks ago. It was the first they knew of his role with the company.

Anderson is a close personal friend of Mort Console, sole owner of Watsonville Canning, the nation’s largest frozen-vegetable processing company. But he insists that his friendship with Console is not the reason for his firmly held view that the union is largely responsible for breaking the nearly four decades of excellent labor relations between the Teamsters and the company.

The former union leader charges that the union is trying to break the company, not vice versa. And Verduzco says the secret motive behind the strike is Presser’s “thirst to punish” Anderson because he did not support Presser’s bid for the union presidency and could not be counted on to be a member of Presser’s “team.”

Verduzco says that Presser, who was recently indicted on labor fraud charges by a federal grand jury, is secretly orchestrating the violence-plagued strike and hopes to “get at” Anderson by hurting his good friend Console, the company owner.

But there seems to be merit to the response of Chuck Mack, head of the Teamsters Joint Council 7 in San Francisco, who says: “It is absolutely the craziest theory I’ve ever heard. Andy may be saddened, but he will not be hurt by the strike at Watsonville Canning, and Presser is smart enough to know that striking the company isn’t much revenge, even if he really wanted to get some, which I doubt.”

Even foes of Presser inside the union scoff at the “revenge” theory. Officials of the dissident Teamsters for a Democratic Union, which wants to oust Presser, say the workers’ problems are real and caused by the company, not Presser.

Nevertheless, Anderson seems to put credence in Verduzco’s theory of “Presser’s revenge,” and he did develop considerable credibility during his years as a Teamster officer. Adding to his credibility is the fact that during his 32 years with the union, he has never been linked to the underworld, as so many of the union’s other top officers have been.

Nevertheless, his reason for playing any role other than that of neutral mediator in the increasingly bitter strike remains something of a mystery.

His enemies say his support of the company is his own form of revenge against Presser. They say he is still furious with Presser and other Teamster leaders because they forced him from office, and he may be “getting even” with them by helping his corporate executive friend, Console, break the union in the entire frozen-vegetable processing industry.

It is unlikely that Anderson is backing the company for money: He got about $1.1 million from the union in retirement pay when he was forced out of office in 1984.

Anderson says that despite his former role as one of the country’s top union leaders, he had an open mind about the Watsonville dispute because Mort Console and his father, Edward, before him paid wages as high or higher than any other company in the industry. Edward Console signed the industry’s first Teamster contract in 1949, setting the wage pattern for the whole industry since.

Regardless of Anderson’s motives, however, his actions are helping the company, which seems bent on breaking the union and drastically reducing the income of strikers. The firm has hired 900 strikebreakers and says they are now permanent employees.

The union may have made mistakes in the increasingly bitter struggle. But clearly the real victims in the dispute are the mostly Latino women workers, whose wages and benefits were cut almost in half.

Triggering the strike was Watsonville Canning’s refusal to go along with settlements accepted by the rest of the unionized frozen-food processing industry in California, which employs about 3,000 workers. The other companies pay about $5.85 an hour, well below the $7.06 that the industry’s workers were getting a year ago but significantly above the $5.16 that Watsonville Canning is paying its strikebreakers. And the other firms are paying more in fringe benefits than Watsonville Canning.

The union has accepted pay and fringe benefit cuts because the industry is having a hard time competing with increasing frozen-food imports from low-wage foreign countries and from non-union companies in other states, especially Texas. But it refused to accept the more drastic cuts demanded by Watsonville Canning.

Even if Presser is “orchestrating” the strike, as the company alleges--without evidence--to hurt Anderson, the walkout has solid support from union members. Only a handful are scabbing--crossing their own picket lines. Most of the strikers are Mexican-American and Mexican women.

The company is maintaining production with non-union strikebreakers. Company officials claim that productivity is as good as ever but admit that the firm is still in economic trouble because of the non-union competition. Most of the other unionized companies in the industry say their financial situation is improving.

Verduzco gives no sign of compromising: “We don’t want to deal with Presser’s mob-oriented henchmen.” That does sound incongruous coming from a company that has been dealing amicably with the same union for 37 years.

All sides would be served well if the company would return to the good relations that it had for so many years with its employees. It should recognize that the pattern of industry wages, low as they are, has been set by the other companies and should be followed by Watsonville Canning.

Prolonging the strike may well mean a permanent loss of jobs for the strikers and strikebreakers--and an end to the proud history of the nation’s largest frozen-food processor. Cooperation, not contention, between management and workers is by far the best way for all U.S. firms to meet foreign and domestic competition--a lesson that Watsonville Canning may be learning the hard way.

Union Banks on Idea

It isn’t a brand-new idea, but it could be a good one: The Carpenters Union plans to open California’s first union-owned commercial bank; it will be owned both by individual union members and affiliated local unions.

Anthony Ramos, executive secretary-treasurer of the 100,000-member California State Council of Carpenters, said the tentatively named Construction Union Bank will be used, among other things, to help finance unionized construction jobs. An application for a state banking charter has been filed, and Ramos said he expects branch banks to be opened in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas by mid-1987. Fourteen union-owned banks operate in other states, and Ramos said the new California bank might be able to make large loans by combining funds with the other banks. Any profits, he said, will be plowed back into the bank for expansion.

The concept is creative and, if handled properly, could not only help finance job-producing construction projects but also provide discounted lending rates and above-market rates for deposits to union members and non-members alike.