Sakuma Brothers Update: Onerous piece-rates and unfair disciplinary scheme

On Monday August 11th over 150 Sakuma Bros Farms blueberry pickers, members of Familias Unidas por la Justicia, protested and assembled a picket line at the farm’s field office on Benson Road to protest the firing of a union leader, unreliable lunch break times, onerous piece-rates and a new disciplinary scheme that was imposed by the company.

Cornelio Ramirez, a Familias Unidas por la Justicia negotiation committee member, has been the target of an internal campaign by the management of Sakuma Berry Farms to seek out and discipline farm workers who are sympathetic to the independent farm worker union with a previously un-enforced company handbook that establishes a warning-based discipline system. The farm workers do not even have a copy of this handbook. Cornelio received two warnings for talking back to company representatives (a labor contractor and an anti-union consultant), one warning for using his cell phone to record a conversation in Spanish, his second language, and another for “picking too slow.”

Cornelio Ramirez has been the target of an internal campaign by the management of Sakuma Berry Farms to seek out and discipline farmworkers who are sympathetic to the independent farmworker union.

Farm workers have been given arbitrary warnings for activity that is not related to production such as for talking back, using cell phones, and placing their buckets on the ground. Carmen Juarez Ventura, a seasoned picker featured on the cover of Seth Holme’s book, “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies” said she received a warning for placing her bucket on the ground, when the foreman’s wife continuously did the same activity and was never cited. She believed the reason she got the warning was that she was a proud member of Familias Unidas por la Justicia and the manager’s wife was sympathetic to the corporation.

Cornelio Ramirez is a hard worker, because of Sakuma’s executive decision not to harvest portions of the available crops instead of hiring him and many other members of his union before the company was sued for contempt of a court order, Ramirez supplemented his earnings by taking on a nightshift at a local seafood processing plant. After finally being hired by Sakuma Bros Berry Farm so that they could avoid a contempt order and prosecution, Ramirez was subjected to closed door, mandatory one-on-one meetings with his foreman at Sakuma Berry Farms  who tried to convince him that being a member of Familias Unidas por la Justicia was not in his best interest.

During one-on-one meetings, supervisors ask workers about their views of unions and advise union supporters to change their minds. Under normal circumstances, an employer has the right to confer with an employee freely. However, given the inherent coercive power an employer holds over an employee, the message and frequency of these one-on-one meetings dramatically affects the individual worker’s freedom to choose a union. [1. http://www.goiam.org/publications/Legislative_Issues/TheFreedomtoFormAUnion/Employers_Interfere_with_Workers.pdf.]

In early August, Ramirez’s picking was regularly interrupted by mandatory meetings with Mario Vargas and the company’s labor contractor Jesse . In order to avoid taking direct responsibility over the hiring and firing of farm workers this season, some of Sakuma Bros. Farms employees are managed by a third party labor contractor from California who hired some farm workers from California, bused them to Washington State and had them working in fields in Bellingham, before moving them to Skagit County to Sakuma Bros. Farms so that Sakuma management could avoid hiring the union members . Mario Vargas, an anti-union consultant, who is also from California has been holding mandatory 30 minute captive-audience meetings with berry pickers working at Sakuma Bros Farms since the beginning of the season.

In captive-audience meetings, workers are forced to sit through one-sided, anti-union presentations during company time. Workers can be fired for refusing to attend, and workers who support the union can be denied access to the meeting. Although it is legal for employers to use their employees’ work time in this manner, no such venue is provided for workers to make their case in favor of union representation. According to the Bronfenbrenner survey, 92 percent of employers force employees to attend an average of 11 mandatory anti-union presentations during union representation campaigns. [2. http://www.goiam.org/publications/Legislative_Issues/TheFreedomtoFormAUnion/Employers_Interfere_with_Workers.pdf.]

Union President Ramon Torres insists that Cornelio Ramirez, was clearly given warnings for standing up for his right to belong to a farm worker union. This is the case for many of the other farm workers who have currently walked out because of similar citations; they are right in their assumption that this too is a form of retaliation by Sakuma Bros. Farms.

During the captive-audience meeting in the berry fields, Cornelio stood up for his union, he corrected the false information that the anti-union Consultant was giving, telling Vargas that he did not have the right to tell people not to join the union and that he was wrong to give false information about Familias Unidas por la Justicia and their President Ramon Torres.

Other farm workers in that meeting brought up the onerous piece-rates being imposed on the farm workers to the consultant and labor contractor, Vargas told the farm workers that the piece-rates were up to the company, and there was nothing he could do about it. Meanwhile, skilled pickers like Cornelio Ramirez are being cited for not “picking fast enough” to match the onerous piece rates.

Since the walkout on the morning of August 11 – at 8:00am, Cornelio Ramirez was in the farm’s hiring office with four other workers, trying to negotiate their collective reinstatement, and for the removal of the unfair warnings given to all of the workers. Outside, Sakuma Bros Farms tried to corral the 135 farm workers who had assembled a picket line in solidarity in hiring office’s parking lot on Benson Road with tractors, buses and large trucks which farm executives intended to use as a wedge between union leadership (Ramon Torres) who was on public property, and the rest of the union rank and file farm workers. Led by Carmen Ventura Juarez, picketing farm workers engaged in a direct action in the Sakuma hiring office parking lot, using their bodies to block the tractors from completely closing off the communication between union leadership and the rank and file workers.

On Tuesday morning the rest of the workers returned to work and met and pressured the consultants for over an hour about ending the unfair labor practice of giving out bogus “warnings”. Ramon Torres again stood nearby and the workers debriefed with him before going into the berry fields. Raul Calvo the anti-union consultant attempted to disrupt the union meeting to no avail as Ramon challenged him in front of the workers; they clapped as Raul walked away.Cornelio Ramirez was fired by Sakuma Bros. Farms at 10:30AM Monday August 11.  After the meeting with management he came out and met with the union leadership in the parking lot and rallied the farm workers to a boycott picket line at Sakuma’s Farm Market Stand nearby on Cook Rd. The union members were undeterred and vowed to ramp up the boycott. “I have lots of time to support our President Ramon Torres grow the boycott” said Cornelio.

Familias Unidas is calling their supporters to action. Boycott Sakuma products, including Driscoll Berries (Sakuma farmworkers pick berries into Driscoll boxes)

CALL and e-mail Sakuma Brothers Farms Management and ask them to STOP RETALIATING AGAINST THE UNION MEMBERS

They should sit down and do the right thing – NEGOTIATE A UNION CONTRACT NOW!

SteveS@Sakumabros.com | 360-757-1855

For more information: www.boycottsakumaberries.com

familiasunidas@qwestoffice.net