00:00:01.300 - 00:00:41.300

in the harvest. Mhm. Okay, so Kroger, have you okay, See you, Bye. On behalf of job. Oh, I guess he was just passing through serena when he wrote that note and dropped it off. Jim. Absolutely. Mm. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Who are you Francisco

00:00:41.300 - 00:00:57.390

is one is gonna be a demonstration this saturday at the Presidio about sales of Antal lettuce to the military because Antal uh supplies about 60 of the military's needs. There's some sort of under the table arrangements which nobody is real clear on but which will probably

00:00:57.390 - 00:01:20.910

come out. Um San Francisco has certainly been one of the most effective Detroit boston. Uh huh, new york city, New Jersey philadelphia. These are probably among the most effective Chicago. Well, plus the fact that most of the committees that in the non union ranches continue to

00:01:20.920 - 00:01:37.160

function and operate And so that, you know, it's an ongoing organising project. Even among 19 ranches when we talked to the growing, I think the interesting, probably the most difficult work in the hole, let us probably involves the most difficult working the whole agricultural industry because

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the thinning and hauling is done with the short handled ho, which requires that you're bent over all day working with the short handle hole. The employers won't replace them with long handled hose. They say, well it's not, he can't do is good work. Of course we

00:01:53.640 - 00:02:10.220

have statistics. We show that disability among farm workers due to back problems is tremendously higher among workers in the lettuce industry because they have to work with the short handled ho. The lettuce packing is done on a piece rate basis. If you go out and look

00:02:10.220 - 00:02:23.280

at a cruel lettuce workers, you'll notice that practically all young men Because the guy does it for five years, maybe 10 years and then he can't do it anymore and see he makes the money that he makes by this expression in spanish is martin does a

00:02:23.280 - 00:02:37.180

which means literally killing yourself. And that's what he's doing. Because there's studies that demonstrate that working at that kind of a piece rate uh in that kind of a bent over position, they just kind of run through the field like that, bent over cutting the lettuce

00:02:37.190 - 00:02:56.660

and packing the lettuce actually shortens your lifespan, which it does. And guys just can't do it more than about five or 10 years now. Thanks. Was the right to effective union representation. In other words, the workers here and the resistance here in the valley was just

00:02:57.140 - 00:03:13.060

Almost unanimous. In order 200 workers were fired as a farm worker. You have to sign produced, check off a member of farm workers to right. I mean, that guy has to be a member of your. It's absolutely right. But see the difference is that our union

00:03:13.060 - 00:03:31.390

is their union. In other words, this is their union, this is our union. It's a union. They've chosen. Our contracts are not uh put into effect without ratification by the workers. The workers thing is that before going into any negotiations here, there were two weeks of

00:03:31.390 - 00:03:47.160

meetings that went on here in this union hall out front there of committees of lettuce workers, committees of celery workers, committees of broccoli, workers of tomato, workers of all kinds of workers, all preparing their demands. Every committee from every ranch had meetings and prepared demands of

00:03:47.160 - 00:03:59.890

what things they wanted in their contract and they brought it in and they elected their own negotiate. The teamsters just can't relate to that. They're just gonna start again. I'd like to do that. I say that the farmworker problem is whether or not foreman should be

00:03:59.890 - 00:04:17.870

in the union can see that growers, teamsters don't given their growers, uh want very much for me to be in the unit because again, that same old way the foreman has kept control of the crew. Well, see, a foreman's job is to direct work and to

00:04:17.870 - 00:04:31.300

show people how to do work and to be sure the job is done properly, not to have some kind of stranglehold over people and see if he's in the union, he can do that more effectively. He then has security, himself and the workers. It's just a

00:04:31.310 - 00:04:51.210

much healthier work situation and nobody's threatened or intimidated or by anybody else for the uh, no union will ever be able to really displace this. You know, you talk about, see, that's not a problem because caesar understands what his role is and see cause caesar's goals

00:04:51.210 - 00:05:06.940

are just very open ones. And other people understand. I've been involved since beginning of the Great Strike in 65. I'm from Bakersfield, which is about 30 miles from Delano. And I went away to school and left school after three years and worked for a snake for

00:05:06.940 - 00:05:26.230

a couple years in the south and then came back home and well through a friend, I met Cesar and decided that what he was doing was a good thing and that perhaps I could help doing that violence. We'll see Mexican culture. I'm gonna get shot down

00:05:26.230 - 00:05:45.680

for saying this to see if you look at mexican history. Ah you know the popular heroes, the heroes that people in this movement identify with like Zapata and via are all violent kind of violence is almost like a positive good, you know, with your rifle and

00:05:45.690 - 00:06:03.460

you know, your whole bit. Um, and I mean they said, oh fine, we'll take everything you come to give us, but we want a part of you. It was beautiful. It was, it was really exactly there now 6%. But we think that substantially more than that.

00:06:03.890 - 00:06:22.460

Yeah. Well Donald has a. You're interesting. It was five Change San Francisco already canceled all their consumer products which are saran wrap handy, rap, dow bathroom disinfectant, dowel oven cleaner and touch of Sweden hand lotion. But it isn't a major, uh, part of their, I mean

00:06:22.460 - 00:06:40.130

a major part of their operation is such nice things as napalm and uh, and agricultural chemicals are very big in agricultural chemicals, herbicides and so forth. Plastics, metal and so forth. Of course the people who buy plastics and metal are the government car manufacturers now they're

00:06:40.130 - 00:06:57.380

used by but and a link here in Salinas Valley which 2, 4 d and 245 T. And they're used by other growers here in Salinas as herbicides. Even though they've been banned in Vietnam now our contract specifically out long and so tao and Antal are not

00:06:57.380 - 00:07:13.230

too happy about the kinds of restrictions that were interested in imposing on pesticides. You know because I mean dow had the problem with napalm. They also have a big ecological problem right now. I mean like they're polluting all over the place and there are major manufacturer

00:07:13.230 - 00:07:39.860

of herbicides and pesticides. So I mean there I think there's another reason why they're being resistant. Not just the fact that they want to keep their their deal with the teamsters but I think it also has to do with the pesticide seem that is it's all

00:07:42.560 - 00:08:00.950

that's the one that has. Okay, that's right. Um mr lima, how long have you been with your ego brothers With their bigger brothers for six years? You're from Selena's. That's right. Well what are you doing out here in this? Here we are in this field. What

00:08:00.950 - 00:08:20.840

are you gonna do today? We want to cotton. Thanks salary. How much celery can you pick how many people in your crew and how much? How much can you, can you handle among? 59 Crook and Caravan? 35 - 4000 grades a day. 4000 crates with other

00:08:20.840 - 00:08:41.550

bits of it. Thank you. That's it. You got it so different with maize. Working on the new contract. We'll make better money. We have better working conditions and be protected by the union. Do you get paid more? How much more do you get paid than you

00:08:41.550 - 00:08:57.740

would have got paid before the contract came through? We're getting nine cents increase in other paychecks. nine cents an earthquake. You work with union, You're on the, on the celery committee. What does that mean? What do you do? What I do as a committee man. I

00:08:57.750 - 00:09:23.910

present my crew. I see that things are done right. And we had like first water clean bullets and things of that nature. How long have you been working in agriculture around Salinas? 12 years now? Doing what kind of work? Same thing salary? Mostly truck driving. Truck

00:09:23.910 - 00:09:41.360

driving. Is your family here? You have a family here living in Salinas. Right. Do they work to? No, they don't. Yeah kids eight of them. How old are they? From 20 years to four months. The youngest is four months, four months. What are we waiting for

00:09:41.360 - 00:09:57.900

now? How come You can't, you can't fix salary. That's too cool right now. What the salary not for us? What happens after the celery crop is finished? All we continue working on broccoli and whatever there is, picking out the jokes and things like that. What does

00:09:57.900 - 00:10:14.480

the letter start again? This time around the middle of paper, 15 April. Is there is there a lot of death actually is about the same thing? Well describe what's going to happen because we'll make a film of it later. But tell me what will happen when

00:10:14.480 - 00:10:31.430

you get out there to to work on those machines. What do they do? Right I'll be packing, that's two package to the table and four cars. This is dr back. Well I can't see from here with those machines are like people the cruise ride on those

00:10:31.430 - 00:11:34.950

machines. No, no they we don't write it all, just push him along. Uh huh. Yeah. You had some kind of a knife to cut off the the car organize and come up with okay, one of them that oh

00:11:35.640 - 00:11:55.520

and yeah, yeah. Mhm Sure. And this is not a union dispute to me this is uh this was a new thing going on. It would be different. I mean if this was something new where they just started the contractor, if they just started something, but they

00:11:55.520 - 00:12:11.360

didn't just started. But analyst has been here for many of years and he's had, he has had a contract with the teamsters for uh quite a few years. You're telling me before, how you felt about, about Chavez as to me represents an organization that I don't

00:12:12.040 - 00:12:30.660

stop. Well I don't want to state the what I think he represents. I don't think it would be right. But personally myself, I don't like what he represents. I personally, like I say I'm in the United States citizen, I belong to the United States of America,

00:12:31.240 - 00:12:49.090

not some other country and not some other party. This is a capitalistic country and I believe in the freedom, I believe in the freedom of the United States and I don't believe that anyone man should dominate our food economy. Like he's trying to do. Isn't that

00:12:49.090 - 00:13:00.950

an l a pretty big grower? Doesn't he have a lot of the world's largest, doesn't doesn't he then have a lot of power to dominate the food economy and he has but he doesn't. Well how do we know that Chavez would? Well you can see it's

00:13:00.950 - 00:13:12.670

playing us anything, you can see that he's doing it, he's giving it a heck of a try. I don't understand if you're concerned about one guy having a lot of power in controlling the economy that I would agree with that, I would be worried about that

00:13:12.730 - 00:13:27.990

then why is but Andel, who's a huge grower with land all over the, not only this state, but Arizona. How's he getting everywhere else? How would he be different than a union organization or a guy running the union? Well, it's like I say about animals, there's

00:13:27.990 - 00:13:41.460

other companies, I mean there there's several other companies as far as that goes, but it just so happens that about animals, grew himself up and he become one of the world's largest lattice shepherds and produced industries. All right. I don't believe about animals is trying to

00:13:41.460 - 00:13:57.860

dominate anything like inner harvest or any of the others. And as far as I'm concerned, United Fruit has come into the valley, our inner harvest outfit from boston comes in and they're trying to dominate it, trying to put it under one whole organization and that's not

00:13:57.860 - 00:14:17.410

right either. That comes under another heading. I can't think of the words at the proper time, but it's to me it's something wrong. It's definitely wrong. The horse thing, Your training horses? Trained horse where you from Sinus? Um, you're saying you had trouble with a license.

00:14:17.410 - 00:14:33.090

Tell me about the license. Uh, Well, I've had trouble. Yeah, I used to have a business earlier this year hauling horses. Of course, the license deal was a P. U. C. Public utilities license and it was an improper license. They wanted another $500 for a licence.

00:14:33.090 - 00:14:45.880

Well, forced me out of business. This comes under completely different thing. Yeah. Well, I mean, is that a problem? I see that you're having trouble conducting your business because the government is asking you for too much money to do that or something. Is that is that

00:14:45.880 - 00:15:03.520

correct? That's true. The government does ask too much. It raised the puc of this year. They raised it to a sky high, just about doubled the cost of that license to do business license personally. That's not right either. But this bill, actually, this hasn't got anything

00:15:03.520 - 00:15:18.990

to do with Chavez 50-500. Well, uh, it doesn't away. Let me tell you. I mean, in a way, I mean, be able to do that. You know, how should you be able to deal with government? I think that the government should be a little bit more

00:15:19.000 - 00:15:32.230

easier on the poor man who is trying to make something out of the south. This small man, the little businessman, just like this savannah is going to hurt all those smaller people, not just a big company. He's not hurting these big companies one bit, he's hurting

00:15:32.230 - 00:15:47.980

a small middleman, the little farmer, the little grower, that's who he's hurting. And why should the little man, the middleman, people like me get hurt Because of two big powers that are colliding heads and butting heads together. So we have to take the punishment which two

00:15:47.980 - 00:16:06.330

powers shovels and, but annals the big farmers, the big growers and the ones that are getting hurt is the middleman. The little farmer at the farm workers are the, on the farm workers. I believe the teamsters contract has covered pretty well that they covered for their

00:16:06.330 - 00:16:25.240

medical, unemployment, uh hospitalization, Social Security. They take this, they have applied that to their contract And they get you add that up in a day's time with about 10 or 15 loads or maybe more out of the field. And that adds up to be quite a

00:16:25.240 - 00:16:42.010

bit of money and uh, that split up amongst all the fields and I haven't heard yet about Chavez contract. The only thing I heard about his contract on the union is That he's wanted $2 5 an hour. Beautiful. I, I agree with this. I think they

00:16:42.010 - 00:16:58.660

should get paid good. But what about their hospitalization, their benefits? Don't you think that these people that do do the work should have some kind of benefits? Well, let me add another thing. The union people, the farm workers union people say that one of the main

00:16:58.660 - 00:17:14.850

differences is that the farm workers union was, is a union that's really supported by the farm workers say that that's what I'm disputing and what I'm kind of hot under the collar about is that. But annals has had a contract, a teamsters contract program for themselves.

00:17:16.240 - 00:17:34.160

Find the radius, this outfit here went de Riesgos and inter harvest, they got their contracts with these drives. I've been with the teamsters and I still say that about anil Has had his contract for 10 years and then this man comes into the valley and tries

00:17:34.160 - 00:17:47.780

to deny and say that he did not have a contract for 10 years. But it's a known fact. He has. Well, some people say that it didn't cover the field workers until real recently that they only made it cover the field workers when they got to

00:17:47.780 - 00:18:02.550

be afraid that the farm workers would come in. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's true. I mean, I can't prove it one way or another. I don't think so. I don't think personally myself, I was very ashamed when I heard that ethylene Kennedy

00:18:02.550 - 00:18:17.820

come over here and supported Chavez. I was ashamed of. Uh ah they they even hear about it. I couldn't. A matter of fact, it shocked me when I picked up the paper and I've seen that ethel Kennedy had come down here to support support Chavez shocked

00:18:17.820 - 00:18:30.810

a lot of people this whole valley. Well, that's the impression I got. I was in san Francisco. What about the governor? Does he speak for the kind of things we're talking? Does he speak the kind of things you're talking about as far as the government goes?

00:18:30.810 - 00:18:52.110

I have no knowledge on that. What about Governor Reagan or the Reagan administration? Reagan administration to Maine as uh I think this is that you're in describe but anil company but anil and carb crop and we market the crop. We sell this crop virtually around the

00:18:52.110 - 00:19:15.600

world And 80 of it from the Rocky Mountains to the eastern coast. How big your company is put? And we ship about. This fills up the equivalent of you might, let's talk about today. Today we're shipping letters from red rock Arizona, which this is a picture

00:19:15.600 - 00:19:32.240

here on the wall and Blythe California and the Imperial Valley. Now, Arizona will wind up in about a week and the harvest will concentrate them in the Imperial Valley until into March. And then in March we go back there. Where do they go? You don't sell

00:19:32.240 - 00:19:52.490

directly the supermarket. Yes, we do. The supermarkets have their own buying organizations and they operate out of warehouses and their distribution centers. And the bulk of it goes to these retailers. In addition to the retailer across the country for virtually Every 20,000 people in this country,

00:19:52.680 - 00:20:12.810

somebody is in the wholesale fruit and vegetable business. Uh Some of them are servicing ah Many more than 20,000 people. So this large of a wholesale supplier would be like a chain store and receive merchandise direct into his own warehouse. And this takes care of the

00:20:12.810 - 00:20:30.650

independence and the institutional trade. And this basically have a balance of about half of the merchandise going direct to the traditional large chain stores, the A. And P. S. The pen fruits, the acme markets, the Safeway's and the large change such as that. And then you

00:20:30.650 - 00:20:52.230

have the smaller regional right change stores and the independent operators and there's still a a tremendous volume moved in the referred to as the mom and pop stores and that they're all important markets. And then of course, the institutional, everybody knows what's happening in institutional market

00:20:52.230 - 00:21:20.440

throughout the whole country. More people are eating out the convenience factors and all these interplay on the marketplace. The you've been invited there really, I think really that's our that's our company. But that's not true with the entire industry, that's not true across the country. And

00:21:20.440 - 00:21:45.680

this roadblock should be erased. And looking at the situation now. And also, we do not have a platform to speak from six months ago, three months ago. Since we've had quite a focus on us here because of this, because of this battle. Mm. And I think

00:21:45.680 - 00:22:05.040

we're entitled unions, you don't hear industry saying that this has not been a good vehicle for disputes. You still have the end of at the end of contract, you still have bargaining, you have grievance procedures in each and every contract. The board isn't, it isn't, I'm

00:22:05.040 - 00:22:23.180

not trying to paint that. I would picture the board as being a great large peacemaker. It's up to the it's up to the employer, the employees and the unions to keep a progressive thing going so that both ends both both goals of the worker and the

00:22:23.240 - 00:22:40.720

on the entrepreneur can be best served the unions as this as this dispute goes on. Do you get support from other growers? You're carrying the battle at this point with the farm workers in the sweetest in the Salinas Valley such as it is. Do you get

00:22:40.720 - 00:23:03.370

support from the other growers in this? I don't know what they could do in the form of in form of support and, and no, we don't, but I don't know what they could do. What what, how how can this go back to the contract? I've heard

00:23:03.370 - 00:23:20.660

it said that your contract through the teamsters contract that covers you say all all of your workers is a real good contract. Can you describe the contract that under which button will work? Field workers are employed? What does it provide for them and in financial benefits?

00:23:20.670 - 00:23:43.200

Well, the harvest activities have piece rates and these piece rates are running average earnings. And the harvest operations up around $3.5. Which goes from a low of 2 15 to as high as I think 487 or something was high last week and a certain crew. So

00:23:43.200 - 00:24:01.880

it was averaging over $3 in the harvest. And then in the cultural, the thinning in the hiring and irrigating The minimum wage is $2 or to 10. I'd have to, it's to 10 I think. Well, this is a contract. It's comparable to the plans that we

00:24:01.880 - 00:24:29.060

have covering in the vacuum cooling operations, which is a CIA operation and it's a good medical plan. So you're saying that the kind of mexican americans have and large numbers are here in the state of California and working in all industry. And do you have, can

00:24:29.060 - 00:24:52.360

we go off just make sure parent mm the production but and a link is his and this production. The people that actually grow the bulk of this volume that we've discussed as There's about 70 independent farmers who were uh huh who we contract with for the

00:24:52.360 - 00:25:14.700

crop. And and the original 15 or 20 of them are actually the first fellas that my dad went into business with and it's been a continuous relationship expanded to about 70 growers Since the early 40s. Ah My dad worked in this business and as a boy

00:25:14.700 - 00:25:38.150

and started in I think when he was 17 or 18 years old working in the fields, working in the packing sheds and took off and started on his own. Originally from texas, my grandfather was railroad worker and as a boiler boiler man wound up out here

00:25:38.150 - 00:25:50.200

in the west coast and got actually started working in the canneries up in the Sacramento valley and then came down to the produce, the lettuce deal. How does, how does somebody like? But anil Gideon