Fair wages and decent living conditions are long overdue in the fruit
packing industry in Yakima Valley. Currently Yakima is the Pandemic
Center in Eastern Washington.
Years ago I spoke with several Fruit Ranchers regarding the deplorable
shacks orchard workers lived in. "They're used to worse back home",
one man told me." These rows of shacks looked like over sized chicken
coops. Crammed in together it was fair game for any virus.
I'm well aware of the precarious conditions facing the Fruit Ranchers,
but paying substandard wages and treating workers worse than farm
animals, can't be tolerated.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/26/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Fruit packers celebrate gains in strike in Yakima Valley
https://themilitant.com/2020/06/20/fruit-packers-celebrate-gains-in-strike-in-yakima-valley/
BY HENRY DENNISON
Vol. 84/No. 25
June 29, 2020
SEATTLE — Workers rallied outside fruit processor Columbia Reach Pack in
Yakima, Washington, June 11 to celebrate their strike victory. “The most
important thing we won is that the company recognized and signed an
agreement with the committee” elected by the workers, Ramón Torres,
president of the independent farmworkers’ union Familias Unidas por la
Justicia, told strikers. The fruit-packing bosses also agreed to make
some improvements in working conditions and for no reprisals against any
strikers.
Strikes in the Yakima Valley fruit industry began May 7 when workers
walked out at Allan Brothers in Naches and then spread to half a dozen
other fruit-packing plants. The actions by mainly immigrant workers in
the crowded, high-speed and low-paid plants began as a response to the
bosses’ lack of steps to protect workers from coronavirus infection, and
quickly expanded to long-standing issues concerning wages, hours, safety
and boss harassment.
The workers’ committee at Columbia Reach was elected on the picket line
May 14 on the first day of the strike. “The committee will keep on
representing workers inside the plant,” Torres said.
“In a lot of places the workers don’t know what to do, or how to defend
themselves,” 41-year-old worker Rosa Maria Paniagua said to celebrating
picketers. “What we did here set an example.”
Workers committees earlier reached agreements at Matson Fruit, Monson
Fruit, both in the nearby town of Selah, and Allan Brothers. Workers on
strike at Frosty Packing in Yakima returned to work when they won a new
bonus pay program. “Columbia Reach was the last one,” Torres said.
Not all the workers’ demands were settled in the agreements and the
fight on these issues will continue.
“I feel like we have the power to change things,” Rosalinda Gonzalez, a
member of the elected committee, told the Yakima Herald-Republic. “If
they don’t fulfill their part of the agreement, we can fight back,”
Paniagua added.
Leaders of Familias Unidas, which grew out of battles by berry pickers
in Washington’s Skagit Valley in 2013, have been in Yakima since the
strikes began, helping packinghouse workers organize themselves. They’re
staying to work with other packinghouse and orchard workers as the
cherry harvest begins.
Workers fight bosses, gov’t attacks as crisis unfolds
Important vanguard struggles are taking place around the world by
workers fighting against efforts by the bosses to expand production and
profits on our backs. From strikes by fruit packers in the Yakima Valley
in Washington state, to textile workers…
Fight for jobs! Defend wages, conditions!
Alyson Kennedy, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president,
issued the following statement June 17. Malcolm Jarrett is the party’s
candidate for vice president. The biggest division working people face
is between those of us working and those out of…
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Feature Articles
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Also In This Issue
What is the road to end police brutality once and for all
Over $123,000 donated to SWP ‘stimulus’ appeal
Fruit packers celebrate gains in strike in Yakima Valley
Fight for jobs! Defend wages, conditions!
Books of the Month
Workers need to break from dead end of ‘lesser evil’ politics
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of
wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who
pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human
beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather
than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and
structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes
and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
