SACRAMENTO, CA—The city basked in Sunday quiet, summer’s fierce heat had mellowed to a soft 85º, and both the Raiders and the ‘Niners had fans biting their nails. But for the team gathered at the ILWU warehouse Local 17 office Sept. 16, organizing was the name of the game. Local 17 members joined worker-organizers from Blue Diamond Growers and ILWU staff organizers to fan out around the Sacramento area and visit Blue Diamond workers at home.

Most successful organizing drives rely on house calls. Management can and does talk to workers on the job, filling them up with anti-union propaganda. Workers have the right to talk union on breaks, at lunch, before and after work—but often feel shy about exercising this right under the prying eyes of bosses and spies. To really “talk union,” organizers and committee members have to seek people out at home.

“We all need to do our part,” Local 17 President Jeff Carter said. “When we’re out there as union members, we can explain how we deal with issues people come across on the job, like safety and training and getting pulled out of one department and put in another. We can explain how we have a hand in setting up the procedures, so they don’t just get shoved down our throats.”

After a quick orientation among the still-unpacked boxes in Local 17’s new hall, volunteers paired up and hit the road.

Blue Diamond Organizing Committee member Cesario Aguirre got the route in Galt and Elk Grove, about 20 miles south of Sacramento.

“All this used to be farmland when I was in high school,” he said as he drove. “I used to work out here, and Cesar Chavez came through a couple times with the UFW people.”
After a bit of unscheduled exploration, Aguirre reached the first house, but the person he was looking for was out. Richard Thompson, next on the list, said he’d left Blue Diamond in January.

“I walked away after 28 years,” Thompson said. “I drove a forklift when they needed me to, then they’d bump me back to general laborer and treat me like a nobody.”

“Weren’t you a battery attendant too?” Aguirre asked.

“For 10, 12 years. You take care of those forklift batteries and you can get seven or eight years out of them,” Thompson said. “But when [General Manager] Kim Kennedy came in, he didn’t want to pay someone to do that. He’d rather let one run down and get a new one. Just like he has all those temps in there.”

Another person on the route explained how they lost their job after getting injured at work. Another, who still works at Blue Diamond, just wanted to know, “When are we going to vote?”

“When we can have a fair process,” Aguirre said. “Now Blue Diamond has all the leverage. They can fire people. They can talk to us all the time and the union can’t get in there. They even have the election at the plant instead of in a public place.”

The worker nodded thoughtfully, then said to Aguirre, “They tried to shit-can your job too, didn’t they?”

Aguirre, a mechanic, had been off the job for 16 months after an 800-pound box dumper fell on him. The accident nearly cost him an eye. He came back to work in 2004 and did everything asked of him. Two years later, Blue Diamond suddenly decided he was too disabled to perform his duties safely, and tried to fire him.

“They tried to get rid of me but they didn’t succeed,” Aguirre said. The union started a petition for him, and asked one of its lawyers to go with him when he met with management to be sure Blue Diamond understood the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The next couple people on the list were out, but Jagit Singh invited Aguirre in and proved very supportive.

“In my town in India, I was the mayor, from the Congress Party, and all the workers were for me because I was for the unions,” Singh said.

By 7 p.m. the teams headed back to the Mexican seafood restaurant half-owned by a retired member of longshore Local 18. They swapped war stories and lessons over guacamole, chips and dinner.

“One guy in a trailer park in North Highlands had a sign up by his driveway, ‘Redneck Parking Only,’” Local 17 Dispatcher/Business Agent Everett Burdan said, his blue eyes glinting. He’d been teamed up with Willie Willis, a Local 17 member from C&S/ Sacramento Logistics.

“I just went back to the truck,” said Willis, who’s African American. “I wasn’t going to try to represent the union there, knowing how he felt.” But in Del Paso Heights, where Willis grew up, it was a different story.

“This one lady didn’t want to talk and I said, ‘hey, I went to school with your kids, and you know Ms. Willis, she works there at Blue Diamond too, she’s my mom,” he said. “That made her more comfortable and we talked for about a half-hour about the problems she has with the benefits, with her husband being disabled and all.”

ILWU Organizing Director Peter Olney and C&S clerk Audrey Corral drove 60 miles around Rio Linda and the area bordering Citrus Heights. Two of the houses on their route had signs out front, “for sale by bank.” The residents, both long-term temps at Blue Diamond, lost their homes to foreclosure.

“I wouldn’t be able to live on what they make at Blue Diamond, much less raise a family on it,” Corral said. “It’s like being on welfare.”

Earlier this summer, Corral and the other clerks successfully organized to join Local 17. When one of the Blue Diamond workers talked about their fears of getting involved in organizing, Corral could relate.

“I told them the ILWU will back you up and protect you to its utmost ability,” Corral said. “My having had the experience made it more real to them.”

The rest of C & S was unionized, and the clerks still had to fight, Burdan pointed out. “At Blue Diamond, we’re building from the ground up, and it’s going to take a while. We’re going to have to keep doing this.”

—Marcy Rein

If you would like to help out with house calls, please phone ILWU Organizer Agustin Ramirez at (916) 606-4681.