For photos of the huge Oakland car caravan protesting the murder of George Floyd, and new online exhibition, see below.
APPLE SHED STRIKES WIN RECOGNITION, AND THE FIGHT GOES ON
By David Bacon
Labornotes, 6/2/20
Strikers at Allan Brothers. (Photo by Xolotl Edgar Franx)
Thirty four workers at the apple packing shed that sparked a wave of strikes in central Washington went back to work on Monday with a written agreement recognizing their workers’ committee, Trabajadores Unidos por la Justicia (Workers United for Justice). Of the 115 workers at Allan Brothers who walked out May 7, the 34 stayed out for the full 22 days, during which hundreds of other workers struck at six additional sheds in the area.
According to Agustin Lopez, a leader of the movement who’s worked in the valley since the mid-1980s, «The most important thing to us is that the company is recognizing our committee as the representative of all the workers. Under the agreement we will continue negotiating for salary increases, better working conditions, and health protections. The agreement means that our rights as workers are respected.»
The shed strike wave was touched off by the impact of the coronavirus on the hundreds of people who labor sorting fruit in Yakima Valley’s huge packinghouses. While their numbers are smaller than the huge workforce of thousands who pick the fruit in the summer and fall, the shed workforce occupies a strategic place in this system of agricultural production. The virus has spread more widely here than in any other county on the Pacific Coast, with an infection rate of about 500 per 100,000. As of June 1 Yakima County had 3,891 COVID-19 cases and 90 deaths. Twenty-four percent of people tested have been infected, and the local hospital system is at capacity with few beds available.
«The most important demand for us is that we have a healthy workplace and protection from the virus,» Lopez explained at the start of the conflict. «Fourteen people have left work over the last month because they have the COVID-19.»
During harvest time, trucks from the orchards haul loads of apples and cherries picked by thousands of farmworkers, laboring for the big growers of the Yakima Valley. After the fruit is cooled and stored, orders from the grocery chains are filled by workers, mostly women, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of fast-moving conveyor belts. As apples and cherries sweep past, they sort it and send it on to other workers who wash and pack it, and eventually load it onto trucks. By the time it appears on the shelves of supermarkets around the country, the fruit has passed through many working hands.
Packinghouse laborers are almost entirely immigrants from Mexico, and most of the sorting jobs on the lines are done by women. Their families make up the working-class backbone of the small towns of Yakima Valley. Most have lived here for years. Jobs in the sheds pay minimum wage, but they’re are a step up from the fields because they offer year-round work at 40 hours per week.
While their numbers are smaller than the huge workforce of thousands who pick the fruit in the summer and fall, the shed workforce occupies a strategic place in this system of agricultural production.
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shed-strikes-win-recognition-and.html
https://labornotes.org/2020/
06/apple-shed-strikes-win-recognition-fight-goes
OAKLAND, CA – 31MAY20 – Thousands of people participate in a caravan of over 2000 cars from the Port of Oakland, to protest the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and African American and people of color killed by police.
To see a full set of photos, click here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/
56646659@N05/albums/72157714533842187