PAGE 8 | April 1 , 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Farmworker tour spreads the word about Driscoll’s boycott
Left, farmworker union president
Ramon Torres and member Lázaro
Matamoros march outside a Whole
Foods store at 28th and East Burn-
side in Portland. Inside, half-pint
boxes of Driscoll’s berries sell two for
$5; farmworkers in Mexico are paid
$5.75 a day.
Unions in Washington and Baja
Mexico make common cause
The leader of an independent
farmworker union in Burlington,
Washington, is touring the West
Coast to promote a boycott of
Driscoll’s berries. The union Las
Familias Unidas por la Justicia
(Families United for Justice)
arose in 2013 in response to se-
rious labor abuses at Sakuma
Brothers Farms. In Northwest
Washington’s Skagit Valley,
Sakuma Brothers employs about
450 farmworkers to pick its
strawberries, blueberries, black-
berries, and raspberries. In 2014,
the company agreed to pay
$850,000 to settle a federal wage
and hour lawsuit — reportedly
the largest-ever wage settlement
in Washington. According to the
suit, Sakuma Brothers failed to
pay for all hours worked and
didn’t give legally-required rest
breaks. Sakuma Brothers agreed
in the settlement to correct those
practices. Familias Unidas also
wants the company to recognize
the union and negotiate a labor
contract with wages of $15 an
hour. The boycott was called in
2013 in response to the com-
pany’s refusal to do that.
Most Sakuma Brothers berries
are sold and marketed by
Driscoll’s, based in Watsonville,
California. Driscoll’s has had se-
rious labor problems of its own.
Last March, up to 70,000 farm-
workers in the San Quintín valley
of Baja California Mexico waged
intermittent strikes and blocked
the region’s main highway to de-
mand an eight-hour workday, a
doubling of their daily wage to
200 pesos per day [about $11.50],
health care and overtime pay, an
end to widespread sexual abuse,
and legal recognition of their in-
dependent union — the Alianza
de Organizaciones por la Justicia
Social del Valle de San Quintín.
Driscoll’s affiliate BerryMex was
a primary target of the strike.
Laid-off Nabisco workers
push Mexican Oreo boycott
Highly profitable Nabisco laid
off 277 of its Chicago workers
March 23, with more layoffs to
come. Mondelēz, owner of the
Nabisco brand, told the Bakery,
Confectionery, Tobacco and
Grain Millers (BCTGM) union
last May that it was investing
$130 million in a new produc-
tion line in Mexico, but would
consider Chicago instead if
union workers there agreed to
$46 million a year in conces-
sions. The union refused, and
the company moved to shift pro-
duction to Mexico.
BCTGM has responded with
a boycott, and is calling on U.S.
consumers to check the labels,
and not to buy Nabisco products
made in Mexico.
To promote that message to
labor organizations and commu-
nity groups, BCTGM plans to
send out “boycott education
teams” made up of two or three
laid-off workers. They’ll focus
on large urban areas around the
country, beginning in the
Chicago area. In mid-April, one
team will start in Washington
state and travel south, and an-
other will start in Atlanta and
travel north.
“Nabisco’s plans to lay off
American workers, put their
jobs in Mexico and then return
the products to the United States
to sell is the ultimate insult to
both the American worker and
consumer,” said BCTGM Pres-
ident David Durkee in a press
statement.
BCTGM’s national contract
covering 2,000 Nabisco workers
expired Feb. 29, 2016. When the
two sides last met March 11,
BCGTM campaign coordinator
Ron Baker says the company
proposed to terminate its de-
fined benefit pension for all
workers — in what it called its
“last best and final” offer.
They’ll meet again April 7-8.
In clashes at the roadblocks,
police fired rubber bullets, and
dozens of strikers were injured
and several hospitalized. Mex-
ico’s federal government inter-
vened, and in May, brokered a
deal with growers that met most
of the strikers demands, with the
government even chipping in to
pay part of farmworkers’ wages.
But leaders of the independent
Mexican union say employers
haven’t complied with the agree-
ment. Protests began again this
spring, and farmworkers took
part in a four-day march to the
U.S. border that ended March 20.
Familias Unidas president Ra-
mon Torres and several support-
ers will also arrive at the border
April 9 — from the U.S. side —
as part of a 28-day 16-city West
Coast tour promoting the boy-
cott. The tour left Burlington
March 17 and had its first stop in
Portland March 18-19, followed
by Eugene and Medford, Ore-
gon.
The two unions have a pact
that the Driscoll’s boycott will
continue until both unions have
contracts — and that neither
union will reach an agreement
without the other.
The boycott is backed by the
Washington State Labor Council
and San Francisco Labor Coun-
cil, among other groups. Famil-
ias Unidas became an affiliate of
the Washington State Labor
Council, AFL-CIO, in 2015.
Consumers are asked not to
buy products under the Driscoll’s
or Sakuma Bros. labels — or
Häagen-Dazs berry flavors.
Boycott organizers are also tar-
geting Whole Foods and Costco
and are asking customers to call
on those companies to stop sell-
ing Driscoll’s berries.