------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 22, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
ON THE PICKET LINE
MUSHROOM PICKERS WIN UNION AFTER 17 YEARS!
Persistence pays off. That's the lesson of the Pictsweet workers' 17- year struggle to win a union contract with the largest mushroom grower in Southern California. Though the 300 workers at Pictsweet Mushroom Farms in Ventura had voted in the United Farm Workers in 1987, the company refused to recognize the union. But on Feb. 13 the California Agricultural Labor Relations ruled that the company had to accept a three-year contract.
The strong UFW contract includes better pay, employer-paid family health care coverage, paid holidays and vacations and a union plant safety committee. Up to now Pictsweet workers made $6.50 an hour picking mushrooms in dark, dank rooms lit only by lights on the workers' helmets. Workers with union contracts doing similar work made $3 per hour more.
What helped turn the situation around was legislation passed in 2003 that mandates mediation when growers unfairly delay contract negotiations with farm workers who have voted for a union. Even though agricultural workers in California have been able to form unions since 1975, growers routinely stall negotiations to deny workers their rights. Before passage of the law, only 185 companies had signed union contracts since 1975 out of 428 where farm workers had voted for the UFW. That means 57 percent of farm workers who want to unionize are still struggling for representation.
NEW SCHOOL CONTESTS ADJUNCT UNION VOTE
The New School in New York City may once have been a progressive institution. But the fact that it's contesting a union drive by adjunct faculty members who average $2,700 per course without benefits puts it into the same anti-labor camp as Wal-Mart.
And make no mistake about who is leading that effort: the New School president is former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, who currently sits on the Congressional 9/11 Commission.
In a mail-in vote on Feb. 27 a majority of 1,600 eligible part-time faculty members cast ballots, voting to be represent ed by the United Auto Workers. Kerrey asked on March 5 that the results be thrown out, because the vote wasn't "sufficiently representative." Of 65 percent of the adjuncts voting, 530 voted for the union, with 466 opposed. Such elections are normally binding on employers, though corporations increasingly contest them.
Joe Haske, who has taught drawing at Parsons School of Design for 22 years, told the March 17 Village Voice that Kerrey's rejection of the vote was undemocratic. "Do you think if we'd lost they'd want to overturn it?" he asked.
Haske and other adjunct faculty members said they viewed unionization as the only effective way to have a voice at the school. "In all the years I've been here I have never found a way to address problems or complaints without worrying about losing my job," he said.
Last month's vote followed a nine-month- long hearing process at the National Labor Relations Board, where New School lawyers succeeded in knocking out a substantial number of would-be bargaining unit members, saying they were either managers or barred from unionizing under previous rulings.
During the tense days leading up to the vote, New School students presented Kerrey with 1,000 signatures from classmates who support the faculty's right to organize.
Meanwhile, part-time faculty members are also organizing at other area campuses, including Pace University. And adjunct teachers at New York University, who voted to be represented by the UAW in 2002, are considering a walkout this spring to protest NYUfailure to agree to a contract.
--Sue Davis
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
