The decision by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board to permit a so-called union election at Coastal Berry, the largest employer of strawberry workers, makes a laughingstock of laws designed to ensure that farm workers have the most basic of rights. California strawberry workers. Benefits like health care or a paid holiday are rare.
C is more rare.
In the face of a broad movement by tens of thousands of consumers and union members to support strawberry workers and counter the strawberry growers ' generations-long grip, the strawberry industry has resorted to reprehensible tactics. The strawberry industry has spent a small fortune to crush workers ' expectations and block their efforts to organize a union with the United Farm Workers. As agribusiness has done in the past when farm workers organized unions to improve their lives, the strawberry industry has bankrolled phony opposition groups, spent huge sums on a public relations operation and run their fields like fortresses with tools of violence. The industry has used the threat of thugs advancing with lead pipes on co-workers, of fields being plowed under in retaliation for joining a union, and of intimidation to create a moment when fear overcomes the most basic of rights. This isn ' t a union election.