Onion Grower in Saugus Folds Tent, Workers Learn by Phone

As Lupe Garza tells it, there was nothing about the workday at the Saugus onion field that held any hint that something was amiss. So the announcement made by officials of Boskovich Farms Inc. at a hastily called meeting of foremen came as an awful surprise.

Boskovich would not be farming onions in Saugus anymore, the foremen were told Tuesday just after workers had gone home for the day. They were instructed to call workers that night and tell them to pick up their last paychecks Wednesday morning.

That is how, as the old year ended, about 300 employees of the farm learned that they were out of jobs and would begin the new year in the ranks of the unemployed.

“There was no warning at all,” said Garza, 67, of Saugus, one of the foremen and a 24-year company employee. “Nobody knows what they’re going to do. Most of us have been with the company for many years. We don’t know any other work.”

Garza said the foremen received “a little extra” in their last paychecks, but the other workers received no severance pay.

Changing economic times are to blame, said Joe Boskovich, vice president of the family-owned firm that has farms throughout Southern California. The company has farmed the Saugus onion fields since 1946. Boskovich said the company has lost money for the last five years growing green onions. The firm will grow the onions in Mexico where labor is cheaper, he said.

About 100 acres of onions remaining on the Saugus farm will be plowed under immediately, Boskovich said.

Although contemplated for several years, he said, the decision to lay off workers was prompted by “a sudden downturn in the green onion market.”

As Boskovich spoke Wednesday, workers lingered outside the company’s office at Rye Canyon Road and Scott Avenue long after they had received their paychecks. Some talked of picketing the company so that trucks loaded with onions could not enter the packing area. Others speculated that the company wanted to get rid of workers with the most seniority.

Fermin Elias, 62, who worked in the onion fields for 26 years, worried about how he would pay next month’s rent. Gamaliel Prado, 35, said that he wanted to look for a job but that he can’t go to a factory because he doesn’t know the work.

Rosa de la Rosa, 48, said she would have marked her 14th anniversary with the company Feb. 13. Her husband, Cliofas, also worked for the company 14 years.

De La Rosa said she has two sons who may not be able to continue their educations at UCLA and College of the Canyons. “They . . . depended on my income,” she said. “Now we have no work at all.”

De La Rosa and the rest of the workers talked almost endlessly about the manner in which they were informed of the layoff.

“Why were we laid off so abruptly?” asked Guadalupe Herrera, 39, a 16-year employee of the company. He said his wife and three of his seven children also worked in the onion fields.

“We should have been forewarned,” said Gregorio Aguallo, 27, who has worked for the firm eight years. “They should have told us a month ago.”

But Boskovich said laying off the workers would “have been just as painful a month ago.”

The company was founded in 1915 in North Hollywood by Boskovich’s grandfather. In 1946, land development drove the family business up the Santa Clarita Valley, where they leased land from the Newhall Land & Farm Co. At one time, the firm planted 1,200 acres in green onions, but this year the acreage is down to 600. Boskovich said the company will phase out its Santa Clarita Valley operation because of encroaching development--and the accompanying rise in land prices--within two years.

The decision to plow under the onion fields in Saugus was inevitable, he said, because green onion production in this country has shifted to Mexico.

“We pay per day in Mexico what we pay per hour here,” Boskovich said.

Saugus workers earned $5 to $10 an hour with full benefits, he said.

The firm will continue to farm in Riverside and Ventura counties, Boskovich said. Workers were not offered jobs in the company’s remaining fields in the area, or in other fields the company owns in Camarillo, he said.

Boskovich said he felt badly about having to lay off the workers, but said he had no choice.

“There was just no nice way to do it.”