Trampling Out the Vintage by Frank Bardacke

Author:Frank Bardacke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

Meanwhile, back on the farm, the UFW had a mixed record. In Salinas, InterHarvest–United Brands was under orders from its CEO, Eli Black, to cooperate with the union, and had ceded an extraordinary degree of control over the work process to the crews, especially the militant piece-rate lettuce crews. The company didn’t put up much of a fight either when the union struck InterHarvest in September 1972, the day after the two-year contract expired. The orderly work stoppage resembled a ritualized industrial strike, where the company accepts the shutdown of its facilities while it negotiates a new contract. The company did not try to use strikebreakers, and the three-year contract that resulted from negotiations raised hourly wages by 16 percent. The piece rates did not rise as fast, and the company did manage to win a new clause in the contract that gave it more control over “the quality of the pack.”

The success at InterHarvest, the biggest vegetable company in Salinas, blunted the impact of the union’s failure to hold two of its other Salinas Valley contracts. Brown & Hill Tomatoes refused to renew its contract and imported scabs to break the ensuing six-week strike. The D’Arrigo management complained that the hiring hall staff was inexperienced and difficult to work with, and Andrew D’Arrigo told The Packer, one of the main trade publications, “The disagreement is over whether the workers have a right to stop work any time they want to . . . It’s over who controls the quality of the package, them or us.”43 D’Arrigo concluded that it was impossible for his company “to live” with a UFW contract, and also refused to renew. His complaint, although exaggerated, had validity: companies with union contracts faced stiff competition from nonunion growers, who paid less to produce a product over which they had more control and which they could sell for a higher price. The problem of nonunion competition would recur throughout UFW history and would figure large in the union’s final collapse, but at this time it received little notice in La Paz.

The union suffered an even greater jolt in 1972 at Schenley. The first company to have a union contract—it had signed during the Easter pilgrimage in 1966—Schenley had been a San Joaquin Valley union stronghold. Its workers earned top wages, had successfully fought for better working conditions in the fields, and were covered by the union medical plan. Turnover was limited, and the few dispatches every season were prized possessions. The ranch committee had more independent power than any other in the valley, and large numbers of people voluntarily attended union meetings, where they debated matters of substance. No union official messed with Schenley’s long-established seniority list, and because the 500 Schenley workers (at peak season) were mostly local residents, they were likely to have their dues paid up. In the Central Valley, Schenley shone as the UFW’s jewel.

In February 1971, Buttes Gas & Oil took over the entire 5,000-acre Schenley operation. It changed the name to

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