Hawaiian workers had grown pineapple for Fresh Del Monte Produce and its predecessors for more than 100 years, half of that time under a contract with their union, ILWU Local 142. Then in Feb. 2006 the company announced it would close operations in 2008 and outsource pine production out of the U.S.

Now the company has changed the deal—it announced last November that it would close production as of Jan. 2007, throwing 550 ILWU members off the job a year early.

Under federal law Del Monte had to provide 60 days work or pay since it hadn’t given 60 days notice.

“The extra two months of compensation offered little consolation to the workers, most of whom expected another two years to prepare for the shutdown,” Local 142 President Fred Galdones said.

So Local 142 filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against the company charging it had failed to bargain the effects of closure in good faith.

After that, the company sat down and agreed to provide two months of additional medicals for covered seasonal and non-regular workers, who otherwise would have had no severance benefits.

The company wouldn’t budge on the issue of financial help for 120 workers’ families living at Kunia Camp after Dec. 2008. However, it agreed to allow employees and retirees to continue living at the site.

The ILWU International Executive Board issued a Statement of Policy at its December, 2006 meeting requesting everyone in the ILWU family to boycott all Fresh Del Monte Produce over the company’s failure to bargain a fair closure settlement with the workers.

“We thank you for your continuing support of the ILWU members from Del Monte and trust that you will support the boycott,” Galdones said in a letter to the union.

—Tom Price