Strawberry Pickers Will Vote Again on Labor Union

On the heels of last week’s inconclusive vote, the United Farm Workers and an upstart independent union will square off again this week to determine who will represent 1,500 California strawberry pickers.

The state Agricultural Labor Relations Board made that determination Tuesday after counting most of the remaining contested ballots from that election, in which more than 1,300 workers for Coastal Berry Co. voted. The company, with operations in Watsonville and Oxnard, is the country’s largest independent strawberry grower.

The outcome of this hard-fought election is considered crucial to the UFW, which has waged a costly three-year campaign to organize the state’s 20,000 strawberry workers, with little success.

In fact, the venerated union came within a few votes of losing the previous election outright. More than half the disputed ballots went to the independent Coastal Berry of California Farmworkers Committee, which barely missed getting the majority required by state law.

The final breakdown was: Committee, 670; UFW, 589; no union, 83.

After hours of negotiations with state board officials, the UFW and the Committee agreed Tuesday to participate in a new election to be run Thursday and Friday. Ballots are to be counted Friday night.

The new election was arranged hastily because the strawberry season in Oxnard is winding down and many workers will soon leave the area.

Because the new ballot will not contain a “no union” option, Coastal Berry workers will definitely be represented by a bargaining unit after the coming vote.

The UFW has charged that the Committee is a sham union created and supported by growers determined to stop the UFW, but it has not yet produced proof of a connection. UFW President Arturo Rodriguez also said Committee members are inexperienced and ill-prepared to represent workers in contract negotiations.

Members of the Committee denied they received funding from growers and said they are ordinary farm workers who grew tired of aggressive UFW organizing tactics.