National Latino students' group rallies to support Blue Diamond workers
When students from the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (M.E.Ch.A.) rallied at Blue Diamond Growers March 21, the company took great pains to keep the workers from seeing and feeling their support. The plant closed on Good Friday for the first time in memory. Leads worked well into the evening scrubbing the streets clean of the solidarity messages the students had chalked and painted on the pavement. But now anyone who didn't make the rally can see the high points:
Blue Diamond should see that it can't hide . . . it can't close its eyes . . . support for the workers' right to a free and fair vote is coming from all sides.
If you don't have time to read the good news, just take a moment to thank Rep. Matsui for her strong letter to Blue Diamond CEO Doug Youngdahl. Click here to write to her and click the attachment to see her letter to Youngdahl.
BISHOP SOTO STEPS UP Sacramento's new Bishop, Jaime Soto, wrote to Blue Diamond CEO Doug Youngdahl March 26.
"Historically, the success of Blue Diamond Growers is the result of the growers' own efforts to work together for each others' benefits," the Bishop wrote. "The earnest ambitions of your employees are no different. I sincerely hope and pray that both the Growers and their employees will find an equitable accommodation to resolve this unnecessary labor-management tension."
The Bishop also urged Blue Diamond to agree to fair ground rules for a union vote, and offered any of the parish halls in Sacramento as a location for the election.
By mid-May, Youngdahl still had not responded.
REP. MATSUI STEPS FORWARD Congresswoman Doris Matsui, who represents Sacramento, has supported the Blue Diamond workers since they started organizing. She sent them a letter, attended a workers' rights forum in Sacramento with Rep. George Miller and backed the Employee Free Choice Act.
On April 21, she stepped forward with her firmest message to date. In a strongly worded letter to Doug Youngdahl, she urged him to agree to fair ground rules for a union vote--and showed she was not fooled by BDG's claim that it only wanted to follow the law.
"Your determination to persist with a traditional National Labor Relations Board election rather than enhancing the process with the fair ground rules is extremely troubling."
CESAR CHAVEZ MARCH SITS DOWN Sacramento's eighth annual César Chávez March stopped for a brief rally in front of the Blue Diamond plant March 29.
Blue Diamond Organizing Committee members Gene Esparza and Maria Arellano addressed the thousands of marchers, who represented dozens of unions and community groups. The workers have seen their conditions improve since they started organizing, Arellano said. "But we know why we made those gains, and we know we will lose them if we do not have a union," she said.
"All we want is a fair vote," Esparza said. "We want a fair vote, not a rigged vote, and we need your help to get it."
Then the crowd marched up to the Blue Diamond gift shop and sat down for a minute in front of it, yelling and chanting support for the workers' right to organize.
SACRAMENTOCITY COUNCIL OFFERS TO STEP IN The Sacramento City Council stood up again April 1 for the Blue Diamond workers' right to organize and join the ILWU. The Council voted 7 to 1 to create an ad hoc committee which would talk with the company, the workers and the union to try to work out a fair election process agreeable to all.
This marked the second time the Council had taken action for the Blue Diamond workers. At a packed and dramatic meeting Dec. 5, 2006, the Council passed a resolution urging the company to sign a neutrality agreement with the ILWU. Company management has not responded to that or any other input from the community it has called home for nearly 100 years--the community that gave it around $21 million in public aid in 1995 to keep it from leaving town.
City Council member Steve Cohn sponsored the resolution creating the ad hoc committee and will serve as chair. The committee will begin work as soon as Mayor Fargo appoints the other members.
B-COS WE LOVE YOU...Community group pays Mothers' Day visit to BDG plant Communities Organizing Support for Blue Diamond Workers (COS-BDW) stepped out in a big way with its first event, the Nov. 18, 2007 community forum on the labor situation at BDG. COS members have showed up at every Sacramento campaign event since, and they keep urging Youngdahl to sign on to fair rules.
The Friday before Mothers' Day, COS members went to the BDG plant with flowers and cards for all the working moms. About half the workers at BDG are women. Sorters and packers, the largest and lowest-paid group in the plant, are almost all women. Many of them have raised or are raising children on their Blue Diamond wages. Even now, after a few years of steady increases, they make $11.65 per hour.
We hope the next card these workers get will be a union membership card...
THANK REP. MATSUI! Click this link to send an e-mail to Rep. Doris Matsui: http://matsui.house.gov/email.asp. Here is some text you can copy and paste if you like: Thank you for standing up for a fair and free vote for the workers at Blue Diamond Growers! We appreciate your straightforward message to Blue Diamond CEO Doug Youngdahl.
Organizing Victory at Rite Aid Warehouse
After a tough two-year battle, the workers at Rite Aid’s distribution center in Lancaster, CA, won their fight to join ILWU warehouse Local 26 on March 14, 2008. They prevailed despite Rite Aid’s all-out effort to squash their organizing drive. They overcame the flaws in U.S. labor law that make it almost impossible for workers to form unions. And they gave the ILWU the largest mainland organizing victory that anyone can remember, sending a hopeful signal to other workers on the inland end of the maritime logistics chain.
So you want to unionize?
Way to go! Forming a union gives you a real chance at improving your work life. Average wages and benefits run higher for workers with union contracts, and a contract makes your job more secure: you can no longer be fired "at will.” The contract’s rules apply to everyone equally, so they can help make the workplace fairer. And a union gives you something you never get otherwise: a chance for you and your co-workers to sit down across the table from your boss and have your say on issues that affect your life in a big way. But getting from here to union takes some doing. Each organizing drive is different, but you always need to take some basic steps.
