Strategic Drive Takes on California Agribiz Leader

Their organizing has taken them from their manager’s front door in a well-groomed suburb of Sacramento, California to the raging streets of Seoul, South Korea, from the halls of Congress to the stuffy chambers of the National Labor Relations Board. The workers at Blue Diamond Growers (BDG) have circled the world to bring the world’s largest almond processing plant into the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

In their two-and-a-half year drive, they’ve set out to meet Blue Diamond at every link in its web of relationships. They’ve put the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) front and center and helped make Blue Diamond a poster child for this legislation.

“Blue Diamond tries to paint the campaign into a little square around 18th and C Streets [in Sacramento],” said organizing committee member Mike Olivera. “I tell people it’s on a world scale. Wherever Blue Diamond is, we will be there as well.”

BOOMING BUSINESS

California leads the world in almond production, and Blue Diamond leads California’s almond industry. It operates as a cooperative and claims 3,200 of the state’s 6,000 almond growers as members.

Prices have remained high despite steady increases in almond supply. BDG could afford to treat the nearly 600 production and maintenance workers at its Sacramento plant fairly—but it doesn’t.

Workers have watched as the rising costs of living and health care have gobbled more and more of their paychecks. Many with more than 20 seasons at Blue Diamond never built up enough hours in a year to qualify for paid time off, because they got laid off each summer.

Some areas in the plant are always dusty, and sometimes hot and noisy as well. People go to work hurting every day from carpal tunnel and other injuries. Sometimes they get nauseous and sick after the plant has been fumigated. But workers say the disrespect hurts worst.

“Some supervisors treated us like we were just subhuman,” said organizing committee member Randy Reyes. “It was going beyond the realm of what we could put up with.”

Blue Diamond responded to the drive with a self-described “aggressive union-avoidance campaign.” That campaign led to the National Labor Relations Board finding BDG guilty of more than 20 violations of labor law. These included firing two union supporters, threatening workers with loss of their jobs and pensions, and interrogating people about their support for the union.

Blue Diamond’s nasty tactics and disregard for the law made two things clear: The workers wouldn’t have a truly free choice unless the company signed a neutrality agreement, and labor law needed to be much stronger.

NETWORKS OF SOLIDARITY

California almond growers export 70 percent of their product. The flow of trade connects ILWU’s longshore division members with dockworkers round the world.

“We’ve always been connected internationally,” said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath. “Because the world has shrunk and the world economy is so much more connected, the connections we have internationally are now helping us organize locally.”

The ILWU belongs to the International Transport Workers Federation and the International Dockworkers’ Council. Affiliates of those networks, as well as the International Union of Food Workers, visited BDG importers, distributors, and customers in South Korea, India, Japan, England, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand.

The South Koreans linked the Blue Diamond workers’ fight to the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS-FTA) negotiations. Blue Diamond wanted the agreement to eliminate duties on almonds imported to Korea. Korean activists thought a labor law violator deserved no such special treatment. Blue Diamond workers joined anti-KORUS actions in Seoul and Seattle.

During the ILWU’s international convention in Vancouver, British Columbia, delegates hit the streets for a rally with BC Federation of Labor members at Safeway, a major retailer of Blue Diamond’s well-known snacks.

Workers and their allies have also visited Safeway stores in the United States, as well as big industrial users of Blue Diamond almonds like See’s Candies and Hershey’s. Local unions, labor councils, Jobs with Justice chapters and groups ranging from the Twin Cities Religion and Labor Network to the Central Valley Democrats have all pitched in.

ROAD TRIP

The workers’ organizing committee took advantage of summer layoffs to take a few road trips through northern and central California to visit Blue Diamond workers and decision-makers.

They set up a hospitality room at the hotel where the co-op was holding its annual meeting and turned up at the summer session of the California Almond Board, where Blue Diamond CEO Doug Youngdahl serves as vice-chair.

“You could tell Youngdahl was flustered when we walked in with our yellow shirts, even though he acts like Mr. Cool,” said organizing committee member Ann Hurlbut. “He got this real stiff, cold look on his face and tightened his lips.”

When the committee takes action, or allies take action on their behalf, the workers pass flyers and try to bounce the excitement around the plant.

“People get the idea, ‘Wow, this is really serious,’” committee member Gene Esparza said. “More people are believing in us now.”

PART OF SOMETHING LARGER

After Blue Diamond’s first union-busting push in 2005, the ILWU drew up a “Pledge to Restore Workers’ Freedom to Form Unions,” which incorporated the principles of the EFCA.

Seven of nine Sacramento City Council members signed on. The union brought this pledge back to the council in November 2006 and asked the members to follow through with a resolution calling on Blue Diamond to sign a neutrality agreement. The company stalled them for a month, but in December the council voted 6-3 for the resolution.

Sacramento’s representatives in the California legislature also signed the pledge. Assembly member Dave Jones went on to get a resolution passed that put California on record as the first state to support EFCA.

Blue Diamond workers testified in support of that resolution, and continued speaking out at several EFCA events, including the hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives a few weeks before the House passed the bill.

“The introduction and agitation around the EFCA has already had a powerful effect,” said ILWU Organizing Director Peter Olney. “It puts workers’ organizing experience in context and makes them feel a part of something larger.”

SMALL VICTORIES

The union organizing has already had an effect in the plant as well. A year after workers first approached the ILWU, Blue Diamond raised wages and cut the hours needed to qualify for paid time off. It gave another raise in 2006.

But the workers operate in an especially hostile industry, and face all the challenges of a long-term campaign. Inside, committee members deal every day with the fallout from management’s campaign.

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Supervisors keep a close watch on them and restrict them to small work areas. Fear and differences of opinion have split old friends. “People I used to talk with don’t approach me any more,” said committee member Larry Newsome.

“People are still scared from when Blue Diamond was taking us into those captive meetings and bombarding us with flyers,” committee member Ben Monarque said. “I say, ‘Hey, it’s the law, dude. It’s your right.’ We have to keep pounding that into people: You have a right to fight.”

Whether they are taking on management’s line, testifying before Congress, or walking with a picket sign, the committee members find themselves moving in many new directions.

“I hear this all the time,” said lead organizer Agustin Ramirez. “They’re doing things they never believed they would do, like speaking to hundreds of people they don’t know or sitting in the street in Seoul surrounded by riot police. They do them because they truly believe they can make a difference for themselves, and we’re starting to see that difference.”

To get more information and find out how you can support the Blue Diamond workers, visit www.bluediamondunion.org/.