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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 7, 2017)
PAGE 2 | July 7, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS Farmworkers ratify historic first union contract NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS (International Standard Serial Number 0894-444X) Established in 1900 in Portland, Oregon as a voice of the la- bor movement. Published on a semi-monthly basis on the first and third Fridays of each month by the Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc., a non-profit mutual benefit corpo- ration owned by 20 unions and councils including the Ore- gon AFL-CIO. Serving more than 120 union organizations in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Office location: 4275 NE Halsey St., Portland, Oregon Mailing address: P.O. Box 13150, Portland, OR 97213 Phone: (503) 288-3311 Web address: http://nwlaborpress.org Editor & Manager: Michael Gutwig Associate editor: Don McIntosh Office manager: Cheri Rice Printed on recycled paper, using soy-based inks, by members of Teamsters Local 747-M. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Individual subscriptions are $14 a year for union members, $22 a year for all others. Pay by credit card online at nwlaborpress.org/subscribe, or send a check to our mailing address (above) along with your name, address and union affiliation, if any. Group rates of $10.08 a year per person are available for 25 or more subscriptions; call 503-288-3311 for details. CORRECTIONS: See an error? Please let us know at editor@nwlaborpress.org or by phone at 503-288-3311. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT PORTLAND, OREGON. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: If you move, let us know at nwlaborpress.org/subscriber-services or by mail at our mailing address (above). Be sure to provide your old and new addresses and the name/number of your local union. Please allow three weeks for the change to take effect. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS P.O. BOX 13150 PORTLAND, OR 97213-0150 140 Paula After a four-year campaign, 200 Washington farmworkers get $15 an hour and job protections. By Don McIntosh An independent union of North- west Washington farmworkers pulled off a remarkable achieve- ment June 15: They ratified their first-ever union contract, which will raise wages for about 200 farmworkers at the giant Sakuma Brothers berry farm. The contract is the culmina- tion of a four-year struggle that began with strikes at the farm, and escalated into a multi-state boycott campaign targeting Driscoll Berries, which buys most of what Sakuma Brothers produces. Sakuma Brothers grows strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries in the Skagit Valley, about an hour north of Seattle. The union — Familias Unidas por la Justicia (Families United for Justice) — suspended the boycott last Sep- tember when Sakuma Brothers agreed to a process for holding a union election and negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. Familias Unidas spokesperson Maru Mora Villalpando says the new contract delivers what workers set out to achieve: $15 an hour, and protection against unfair discipline. The contract sets a floor of $12 an hour, one dollar above Washington’s cur- rent minimum wage. Piece rates are then set for each kind of berry — for example, $4.25 per tray of blackberries — so that workers will earn on average $15 an hour. Workers will also have seniority rights in hiring and layoff. And they’ll have standard union “just cause” protection, meaning that the employer has to have a fair reason, and document it, for dis- ciplining a worker, and workers have the right to have a union representative defend them. The contract will run two years, through June 2019. Villalpando said Sakuma Brothers workers ratified the contract by an 85 percent mar- gin. The agreement came just in time — days before the begin- ning of berry-picking season. Had the two sides not reached a deal, the contract would have been settled by binding arbitra- tion under the agreement they reached last September. The overwhelming majority of the union’s members speak neither English or Spanish, Vil- lalpando said; they are indige- nous speakers of Mixtec and Triqui from the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero. Famil- ias Unidas is an independent la- bor organization that claims about 500 farmworker members in the Skagit Valley. It’s not part of United Farm Workers, but has been affiliated with the Washing- ton State Labor Council, AFL- CIO, since 2015. It’s exceedingly rare for farm workers to be covered by a union contract, and there are only one or two other farmworker union contracts in Washington. Farm- workers were specifically ex- cluded from coverage under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which regulates private sec- tor unionization, so farm em- ployers have no legal obligation to recognize or bargain with unions — except in California, which has had a state farm- worker union law since 1975.
