|
|
Rice co-op workers make gains in contract
Shown L to R; Pat Maguire; Lynn Robinson; Everett Burdan, BA; Lance Schueler; Jeff Carter, President; and Chief Steward.
By John Showalter
The 165 members of ILWU Local 17 working at Farmers’ Rice Cooperative gained a major victory on September 7 after four months of contract negotiations with their employer, a cooperative owned by more than 800 rice growers in California’s Central Valley.
Among the gains Local 17 achieved in the new three-year contract were pay raises of 40 cents an hour for the first year, 35 cents for the second year and 30 cents for the third year, for raises totaling $1.05 over three years. Local 17 negotiators Lance Schueler, Lynn Robinson, Celia Cisneros and Pat Maguire also preserved the local’s 30-minute paid lunch break and managed to avoid having members pay 29 cents an hour for health care benefits. According to Dan Moody,
Local 17 Chief Steward at Farmers’ Rice, the paid lunch break has long been a contentious issue since local members went on strike over it for six weeks in 1976.
“The [Local 17] pensioners let us know during negotiations that they didn’t want us to give in on the lunch break this time around either,” Moody said.
Moody said that members were very united during the four months of sometimes tough negotiations. They voted twice in near unanimity to strike in June and July, but each time the employer came back to the table. After Farmers’ Rice implemented a substandard contract in July, the local waited until the harvest to apply optimum pressure to get what it needed. Local 17 also filed unfair labor practices in late July at the Co-op on regressive bargaining and intimidation charges when the Co-op threatened to bring in 200 scabs to do the work.
The rice-growing industry—based primarily in California, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana—is almost entirely non-unionized, and this made negotiations especially difficult. However, Local 17’s record as one of the top-performing rice processing plants in the country worked to its advantage. Unity of the entire Co-op workforce—members and casuals—was key to the victory.
“The employer usually targets the casuals first, since they have the fewest rights and defenses, but Local 17 made clear to Farmers’ Rice that it wasn’t going to let them take away anything from them,” negotiating committee member Lynn Robinson said. “We were really able to stick together. When you stick together you win.” |
|
Site Wide Promotion Site Wide Promotion Goes Here 
|
