Many Spanish union activists and allies joined visitors from the ILWU to welcome Blue Diamond Growers CEO Doug Youngdahl to Madrid on May 12.

The activists, pictured to the right, included (back row, left to right) Rosa Sanz, Port of Barcelona; Emilio Manzano Lorenzo, Josep Puig, Jordi Perea and Rafa Eqea from La Coordinadora; Javier Doz and Isabel Runcle from the Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras. (Front row, left to right) Cesario Aguirre, BDG Organizing Committee; Agustin Ramirez, ILWU International Organizer; and Sebastian Besora, Unió de Pagesos de Catalunya.

The workers at BDG’s Sacramento processing plant began organizing almost three years ago to join ILWU warehouse Local 17. They have built a wide net of support to answer the company’s attacks on their right to organize. Because BDG exports about 70 percent of its crop, this network includes allies overseas. Spain is the company’s third-largest export market.

When the ILWU learned Youngdahl would be a featured speaker at the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council (INC) Congress in Madrid, it reached out to dock workers’ and food workers’ unions in Spain, with help from the AFL-CIO Organizing Dept. The Spanish unionists organized meetings and press conferences, and made plans for direct action.

As Youngdahl spoke to an INC session, he was standing in front of a huge graph of California almond production when seven people took the stage. They held up the “Stamp Out Union Busting” banner from the International Transport Workers’ Federation and a special banner that read: “For Union Organization and Freedom at Blue Diamond.” The ILWU’s Augustin Ramirez loudly explained the unusual turn of events to the crowd.

 “Youngdahl tried to ignore me at first, but he got really red and nervous and then stepped away from the mic. The crowd was so surprised that there was dead silence,” Ramirez said.
—MER