dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

2009 Pelosi related: NAPA Valley growers union busting campaign.

Dig notes:

More relationship of Nancy Pelosi to anti union activities.

Pelosi owns Zinfandel Lane Vineyard in NAPA Valley.

This is where they host soirees for the most significant of Democratic party donors and politicians.

Much of NAPA Valley is involved in preventing or removing union organization from its plantations.

Its an ongoing battle for union representation, where we can expect dirty tricks to be used by management.

Here the wine producers used labor contractors to hire non union workers in union vineyards.

The union busting campaign described below is typical.

The employers deceived the new workers into voting against representation, too long a topic for this post.

"They hired scabs"

Conclusion:

This gives the image of the Democrat party rich and powerful dining at the minor house while the Latin American wage slaves toil in the fields.

The Pelosi winery secret should alienate both union and Hispanic votes.

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/2276409-181/ufw-ousted-from-napa-vineyard

https://archive.fo/ghfMk

UFW ousted from Napa vineyard

KEVIN MCCALLUM

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | April 30, 2009

The United Farm Workers union has been ousted from the first Napa Valley vineyards it successfully unionized more than four decades ago, a move that could further erode the union?s influence in Wine Country.

The state Agricultural Labor Relations Board on Wednesday certified the results of an election removing the UFW from representing workers at Vista Vineyard Management in St. Helena.

Of the 60 workers who voted in the June 2008 election, 39 voted against the union, 18 voted to keep it and three votes were contested, said Sam Turner, the company?s president.

?I?m glad that the workers got to decide for themselves their representation,? Turner said.

Most workers who voted against the union resented paying the UFW 2 percent of their wages, Turner said.

But UFW organizer Casimiro Alvarez said the vote is another example of big wine companies turning to contract labor forces to undermine the union founded by Cesar Chavez in the 1960s.

?In the Napa and Sonoma areas, I?m very clear the grape industry is fighting against the union,? Alvarez said. ?They are putting a lot of money to destroy the union.?

The vote is the latest setback to the UFW?s efforts to hold on to gains it made unionizing farmworkers in Wine Country. The union was ousted from Sonoma-Cutrer in 2003 and from Saralee?s Vineyards in Windsor in 2007.

But the union has proven itself skilled at thwarting efforts to pry it loose from some vineyards. In 2004, it reversed a vote to evict it from E&J Gallo?s vineyard operations in Sonoma County. It has also blocked a similar 2007 vote by Gallo vineyard workers in Sonoma County, although an anti-union worker has appealed the vote.

And last year it reversed its 2006 ouster at Charles Krug Winery, winning the reinstatement of its 24 workers.

[…]

The UFW made various appeals, contending it had not been given an accurate list employee contact information, Turner said.

The union made the same charge against Gallo Vineyards, Inc., its largest contract on the North Coast, over a 2007 vote. An administrative law judge ruled last montTurner denied both claims. He said he has increased the number of sub-contracted workers, but only because they allow him greater flexibility and increased productivity. And he vowed to maintain workers? wages at current levels.

We?re going to continue treating them with respect and dignity and continue the wages and a similar benefits package,? Turner said.

The contract was one of the UFW?s first in the state and its longest-running.

The 1967 agreement was originally struck with Christian Brothers Winery, which was later sold to Heublein, which morphed into British drinks giant Diageo. The contract covered workers farming about 435 acres of vineyards, Turner said.

[moar at link above]