During the Halloween Howl for Justice, members of New York Jobs with Justice, along with rank-and-file members of the ILA, leafleted in front of the Hershey's Chocolate shop in Times Square.  Some of the leafletters got into the spirit of the day by dressing as Hershey's kisses. Photo by: Angela Lee

by Marcy Rein

SACRAMENTO, CA—The speaker phone muffled Sharon James’ crisp British accent, so the Blue Diamond organizing committee members gathered around the phone after work were straining to catch every word. James works in the London headquarters of the International Transport Workers’ Federation as assistant secretary of the dockers’ section. She had gotten on the phone at midnight London time Nov. 21 to report to them on the solidarity actions taken around the world that day to back up their fight.

Two days earlier, many of those same workers had been driving all over the county trying to find co-workers at home and talk union with them away from the prying eyes of managers and managers’ spies. The committee has been working hard with ILWU warehouse Local 17 for more than a year now. They want the Sacramento almond-processing plant to agree to a fair process that would respect their right to unionize.

They got raises ranging from 50 cents to $3 per hour, though these aren’t secured by a contract. They saw four of their co-workers fired and watched many people reel from Blue Diamond’s anti-union jabs. But the International Day of Action, on top of a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board and a National Day of Action the month before, gave them a strong shot of hope.

"People cannot believe this is going this far," organizing committee member Gene Esparza said. "But the longer it goes, the more people understand."

Blue Diamond runs the world’s largest almond processing plant, employing just over 600 sorter/packers, operators and other production and maintenance workers. The almond industry is thriving, with prices and demand climbing steadily. The workers are not thriving.

For 15 years their wages stayed almost flat while their health care co-pays spiked. Seasonal workers with as much as 38 years’ seniority didn’t qualify for paid time off, because they didn’t log enough hours in a year. People went to work hurting with carpal tunnel and other injuries.

"They have no respect for us," organizing committee member Alma Orozco said. "They treat us like we’re stupid. And $11 after 30 years? Come on!"

When the workers tried to organize, Blue Diamond brought on what a company spokeswoman called "an aggressive union-avoidance campaign." It hit the workers with more than 30 anti-union flyers and forced them to attend individual and small-group meetings where they were interrogated about their support for the union and fed anti-union propaganda. It threatened that people would lose their pensions and see the plant close if they joined the union. It fired four union supporters for the flimsiest of reasons. Ivo Camilo was the first.

Camilo had a spotless record after 35 years in the plant—and joined the committee members who outed themselves in an April 15 letter demanding that Blue Diamond respect their right to organize. On April 20, two supervisors walked him out of the plant. They claimed he "willfully contaminated" almonds with blood from a one-eighth-inch cut on his hand. On April 21, he got fired.

"I felt angry and betrayed," Camilo said.

U.S. labor law bars such firings, threats and harassment. The union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board in late June. After a three-month investigation, the Board found strong evidence that Blue Diamond broke the law. It issued a complaint against the company citing 28 separate violations by 14 managers and supervisors. An NLRB administrative law judge will begin hearing the case Dec. 5. Organizing committee members hope findings in their favor will cut through the fear fanned by the company’s campaign.

"If any of this goes through, it will really open people’s eyes, especially if any of our guys get their jobs back," committee member Irma Linda Rincon said.

But the union is not relying on the law alone. It is spreading the word of the workers’ fight to all parties who have relationships with Blue Diamond, with one simple request: Ask the company to remain neutral and let the workers decide for themselves whether or not they want a union.

On Oct. 31, the word bounced around the country in the "Halloween Howl for Justice for Blue Diamond Workers."

The howl started on the East Coast, with members of New York Jobs with Justice leafleting outside a Hershey’s Chocolate shop near Times Square, along with rank-and-file members of the International Longshoremen’s Association. The leaflets asked Hershey, as a major user of Blue Diamond almonds, to ask the company to back off its anti-union campaign.

It spread to Chicago, where members of the Workers’ Rights Board from Chicago Jobs with Justice visited World’s Finest Chocolate, another big Blue Diamond customer. They presented their concerns to the assistant for the vice president of sales and marketing. When she insisted they call for an appointment, they promptly whipped out their cell phones. Through the glass partitions in the plush offices, they could see her talking to them on the phone, then conferring with the VP.

"World’s Finest is not the target," Chicago JwJ Director James Thindwa patiently reassured her. "We simply want it to use its moral influence." Allies in Minneapolis, coordinated by the Citizens Trade Campaign, sent a letter to Blue Diamond customer General Mills over the signatures of 18 community leaders, including a state senator and four clergymen of different stripes.

The howl echoed in Denver, where Jobs with Justice members paid a call on CoBank, a leading lender to agricultural co-operatives. It jumped to the Los Angeles area, where representatives from the ILWU and the Pilipino Workers’ Center leafleted at the Nestlé building in Glendale, visited the public relations department and got themselves escorted out by security.

It zipped up the West Coast to Oakland, where brothers and sisters from ILWU Locals 6, 10 and 94 (including several members of the Local 10 drill team) stopped in at the offices of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. It broke out right in front of the Blue Diamond plant in Sacramento, where organizing committee members and the ILWU held a press conference to talk about the NLRB complaint and the day of action. And American Rights at Work launched it into cyberspace. The 9,300 responses to ARAW’s e-mail alert swamped Blue Diamond’s mailboxes.

"That part especially tickled us," committee member Ann Hurlbut said. "We’re just pleased the word is getting out, because the more spotlight we can get on Blue Diamond, the more successful we will be," she said.

On the International Day of Action, delegates from all the ITF affiliates in South Korea visited the Busan offices of the World Food Company. a major distributor of Blue Diamond products.

With November’s International Day of Action, the word shot round the world.

California almond growers send some 70 percent of their product overseas. Spain, Japan, India, France, Korea and the United Kingdom rank among Blue Diamond’s top 15 international customers—and allies in all these countries took the workers’ case to major importers and distributors on the Day of Action.

"Business and capital don’t recognize national boundaries and neither should we," the ITF’s Sharon James said as she began her report to the workers. "Trade union cooperation should not stop at national borders." The ITF includes more than 600 unions in 142 countries, the ILWU among them.

"We hope today’s action will begin a dialogue with the company and help workers in Sacramento in their right to organize," James said. She and ITF Dockers Section Secretary Frank Leys played a key role in coordinating the day’s events and took charge on the U.K. front. They met with a Blue Diamond distributor in London, who promised to get their message back to the company.

All five ITF-affiliated unions in South Korea pooled their efforts to send an 11-member delegation to meet with three major Blue Diamond importers there. Because the ITF sent a letter first, management at one company had already talked to Blue Diamond.

"The general attitude towards our delegates was kind and friendly," ITF Korea Coordinator Hye Kyung Kim said.

S.R. Kulkarni, president of the All-India Dock Workers’ Federation and head of the Asia-Pacific Dockers’ Section of the ITF, led a delegation of 30 activists to meet with a Blue Diamond distributor in Mumbai. At first the distributor refused to talk with them. The delegates stood their ground and chanted loudly until he gave in. He heard them out, then signed a memo to Blue Diamond as requested. A 16-member delegation led by All India Railway Men’s Federation General Secretary J. P. Chaubey visited another Blue Diamond importer in Delhi.

The ITF coordinator in Japan couldn’t get a meeting with anyone in Blue Diamond’s office there, so he sent a protest letter. The ITF’s point person in Rotterdam has been contacting distributors, trying to get them to sign on to a joint statement to Blue Diamond.

The International Union of Food Workers, which brings together some 336 unions, also stepped in to help. IUF affiliates in France and Spain sent strongly worded letters to the management of Nestlé, another major Blue Diamond consumer. The letter from the French Fédération Générale Agroalimentaire called Blue Diamond’s threats of plant closure and pension loss "acts from another century."

When James finished her report, the workers introduced themselves, giving their names and years of seniority. Among them, the nine present had given a total of 152 years to Blue Diamond. Gene Esparza thanked James heartily on behalf of the workers, and then committee member Larry Newsome added a little something extra.

"My brothers and sisters at Blue Diamond are demanding a change and we will show them they cannot crush our faith or keep us from bonding," Newsome said. "Blue Diamond has met some people that will take a stand and not back down."