Changing ALRB Worries Chavez’s Union

Despite a series of court decisions affecting farm labor law that have gone against the Deukmejian Administration, it clearly will soon have the upper hand in a bitter battle with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers over enforcement of the law.

Much of the fight has focused on the longtime, acrimonious conflict between the majority of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board and David Stirling, whom Gov. George Deukmejian appointed as the agency’s general counsel in 1983.

Although the Administration insists that it is “neutral” in farm labor disputes, Stirling and the minority of the five-member board generally support the growers. By January, however, member Jerome Waldie’s term will expire. His departure will give Deukmejian a third appointee and, therefore, a majority.

Stirling praised Deukmejian’s appointment of Jyrl Ann James-Massengale, 31, who has been serving as chairwoman of the ALRB for a year but was confirmed by the state Senate only last week. During her years as a Los Angeles attorney, James-Massengale represented several growers in disputes with farm workers. Chavez called her appointment last year a “disgrace.” (Stirling’s other supporter on the board is John P. McCarthy, a former grower.)

The Administration’s pro-grower stance is the main reason for the farm workers union’s new boycott of California table grapes. The UFW believes that an effective boycott will pressure Deukmejian and Stirling to enforce the law and bolster the cause of the thousands of farm workers who, Chavez says, now fear retaliation by growers if they were to back the union.

During Stirling’s tenure, his arguments with the board majority have forced into court many cases involving penalties against growers--and Stirling has often emerged the loser. Once Deukmejian has a majority, however, Stirling says he is convinced that most of his recent losses will be of little value to the farm workers union. Recent decisions by Stirling have disturbed the union and make the prospect of a Deukmejian majority even more unpalatable for Chavez and his supporters.

For instance, Stirling has been giving growers’ attorneys information about charges by workers. The union and the current board majority have denounced the action, saying the workers talked to ALRB investigators in confidence, for fear of retaliation.

One such case has taken on added importance because it involves J. R. Norton Co., whose former president, John R. Norton, recently became the U.S. deputy secretary of agriculture. Norton’s company, one of the nation’s largest lettuce growers, was found guilty of bargaining in bad faith in a case that began in 1979, and it was ordered by the ALRB to give an estimated 1,000 workers millions of dollars in back pay.

Norton appealed to the courts, charging the ALRB with prejudice against growers. At Norton’s request, Stirling allowed the company’s attorneys to look at case files, including information that the board majority said was confidential testimony from farm workers.

Later, Stirling even agreed to let the attorneys make copies, but that action was halted by the board, which took the case to the California Supreme Court. In June, the high court prohibited Stirling from giving the company’s attorneys any ALRB files.

The Supreme Court also ordered that the state Court of Appeals decide whether the ALRB majority was biased against Norton and whether Stirling is really protecting the interests of farm workers.

In another case, Stirling proposed that the Salinas-based McCarthy Farms settle a complaint by giving workers $15,000 in back pay to compensate for a variety of alleged unfair labor practices, such as the firing of workers who supported the union.

After the ALRB majority refused to accept the settlement, Stirling took the case to court. However, Stirling said he realized belatedly that the case would take far longer to try than he had been led to believe. As a result, the company agreed to pay the workers $157,000.

Stirling blamed Lupe Martinez, regional director of the ALRB in Salinas, saying Martinez had “deceived” him about how long it would take to process the case.

Martinez is resigning this week, and, although Stirling denies it, friends of Martinez insist that Stirling forced the resignation by ordering other ALRB staff members not to talk with Martinez.

In a rare action in a third case, Stirling was ordered by a Superior Court to reimburse the UFW for legal costs incurred when Stirling tried to get an order designed to oust the union as the bargaining agent for workers at San Clemente Ranch Ltd.

Thus, the farm workers union, when backed by the current ALRB majority, has been victorious in most of the cases decided in recent weeks by the courts. But it won’t be long before Stirling’s troubles will be eased--and the union’s problems increased.

South Africa Sanctions

Despite some opposition from Los Angeles fire and police unions to Mayor Tom Bradley’s call for economic sanctions against South Africa, most AFL-CIO unions strongly back such sanctions.

The Police Protective League, which is not an AFL-CIO affiliate, and the AFL-CIO United Firefighters of Los Angeles have openly opposed a plan, proposed by Bradley and several City Council members, to eliminate over five years investments of city employee pension funds in U.S. companies doing business in South Africa.

Other AFL-CIO affiliates representing city workers have not yet joined the fight over investments, but they are discussing with various city officials the procedures that would be followed to achieve divestment.

The labor proposals are generally in line with the mayor’s. Like Bradley, the national AFL-CIO would immediately end all new investments in South Africa.

But there are some differences. The labor federation would immediately halt the sale of South African gold coins, known as Krugerrands, whereas Bradley would call for a local fee on such sales. The fee would be used to help pay for the creation of a nonprofit corporation that would actively oppose South African apartheid.

The national AFL-CIO is cooperating with unions of blacks in South Africa to identify U.S. companies that are not working against apartheid.

The AFL-CIO last week issued a new denunciation of South Africa’s racist policies and criticized the latest declaration of a state of emergency by the South African government as “the most extreme violation of all basic rights of the black people since the tragic days of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960.” (Sharpeville is a suburb of Johannesburg.)

Dozens of national and local AFL-CIO leaders have joined in demonstrations against South Africa’s apartheid, and many were arrested.

The new, angry attacks by the AFL-CIO leaders on the “cruel, unjust and violent system of apartheid” should spur local unions here and in other cities to join the growing effort against the system.

Boycott of Ralphs

The United Food and Commercial Workers is trying some unusual tactics in its increasingly bitter battle with Ralphs Grocery Co. over what the union says is a campaign to cut the wages and hours of many of the company’s 12,000 employees in its 126 Southern California stores.

The union has started a major boycott of Ralphs, using leaflets at stores and a massive mail campaign to tell potential customers that they should buy their products at other supermarkets because of Ralphs’ “illegal layoffs, wage cuts and reduced hours of work for its employees.” Such a call for a boycott is highly unusual for a union that has a valid contract and members who are on the job.

The company denies involvement in any “union-busting” campaign, and Ralphs spokesman Eugene Brown says the union has wildly exaggerated the layoffs and wage reductions. He estimates that only about 200 workers have been affected.

Ralphs says the boycott is illegal because the union failed to wait for arbitration, as provided in the contract. The dispute will go before a federal arbitrator in mid-August.

“Their boycott tactic is also wrong because, if it succeeds in reducing the number of our customers, the union will be hurting its own members,” Brown asserts.

Because the union is in the middle of a three-year contract, it could not legally call a strike. But it contends that a boycott is legal.

UFCW Local 1222 has employed the boycott tactic mostly in the San Diego area.

Tom Vanderveld, head of the local there, said the union has budgeted $50,000 for newspaper ads that will show that Ralphs’ list prices are higher than those of other stores. The ads will urge customers to shop at other markets. Ralphs says the price comparisons are inaccurate.

The UFCW mail campaign so far has been conducted on a random basis, with letters asking for support going to residents in various parts of the Southland. But Rick Icaza, head of UFCW Local 770 here, said, “We are studying the direct mail campaign of Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers union on its boycott of California table grapes, and we, too, will soon start using that system.”

Ralphs management says it is trying to cut labor costs so that it can remain competitive.

Ralphs’ sales jumped 16.1% in 1984 from 1983 levels. Norman Matthews, vice chairman of Ralphs’ parent company, Federated Department Stores, with responsibility for the grocery company, got a 32.4% boost in income in the same period, giving him a total income of about $500,000. Federated’s chief executive, Howard Goldfeder, had an 18% boost in income over the year, giving him almost $1 million for 1984.

Such increases anger unions whose members are forced to accept cutbacks and might make a boycott more effective among consumers, since the union can argue that the company is more interested in increased profits than in the welfare of its workers.