Word: coachella
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Boston UFW branch was protesting the firm's investments in the California Desert Valley Citrus Company, which is having contract disputes with migrant farm-workers in California's Coachella Valley, protester Bernard Bell '78 said yesterday...
Although elections still command much of the spotlight, the UFW has to focus its very limited resources on getting negotiations underway. For example, at Coachella Growers (citrus), the UFW won the union election, but the company has harassed workers by stopping bus service and cutting back the work week. Workers must now get up at 4 a.m. if they wish to commute; otherwise they must live in the labor camp which is expensive and only accomodates men. Growers have said no to a UFW hiring hall, no to a grievance procedure, and no to UFW medical and pension plans...
Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, in partnership with the Desert Valley Citrus Corporation, controls Coachella Growers, and thus directly contributes to the exploitation of the 450 citrus workers on the ranch. Irv Hirshenbaum, director of the New England UFW office, has asked supporters to apply pressure on Connecticut Mutual by demanding to know why the company is stalling negotiations at the workers' expense. "Job security, pension and medical benefits are not unreasonable proposals," Hirshenbaum says...
...story really is the fight of capital against labor, of an established ethnic group supressing newcomers, of those in power against those without power. The lines of class and race are drawn sharp out in the Coachella Valley, the phenomenally fertile section of California where the temperature gets as high as 125 degrees in the summer work season. The UFW is now fighting the growers and the Teamsters Union for the contracts the Teamsters stole in 1973. Since 1965 the UFW has been battling for contracts that will guarantee their members decent wages, safe working conditions, health and retirement benefits...
That is why Gallo turned to the Team sters in 1973. There are striking differences between the Teamsters and the UFW in material benefits to workers, in organizational structure, and in outlook. Mike Bozick, a Coachella grape grower, commented that "the main difference [between the UFW and Teamster contracts] is that we [the growers] can run our business the Western conference of Teamsters is to compare the Teamster-Gallo contract with a UFW Almaden Vineyards contract signed...