[This week the COVID-related strike in Washington state’s Yakima
Valley quadrupled in size, as workers walked out at three more apple
packinghouses with two main demands for safer working conditions and
an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay.] [[link removed]]

COVID-RELATED STRIKES HIT WASHINGTON’S APPLE SHEDS  
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David Bacon
May 14, 2020
Capital & Main
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_ This week the COVID-related strike in Washington state’s Yakima
Valley quadrupled in size, as workers walked out at three more apple
packinghouses with two main demands for safer working conditions and
an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay. _

Strikers at Allan Brothers Fruit., Xolotl Edgar Franx

 

THIS WEEK THE COVID-RELATED STRIKE in Washington state’s Yakima
Valley quadrupled in size, as workers walked out at three more apple
packinghouses. More than a hundred stopped work on May 7 at Allan
Brothers Fruit, a large apple growing, packing and shipping company in
Naches, in Central Washington. On May 12 they were joined by 200 more
workers, who walked off the job at the Jack Frost Fruit Co. in Yakima,
and at the Matson Fruit Co. in Selah. The next day another 100 workers
walked out at the Monson Fruit packing shed, also in Selah.

At the center of the stoppages are two main demands for those who
decide to continue working during the pandemic: safer working
conditions and an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay.

Apple sheds line the industrial streets of Yakima Valley’s small
towns. Inside these huge concrete buildings, hundreds of people labor
shoulder-to-shoulder, sorting and packing fruit.  If someone gets
sick, it can potentially spread through the workers on the lines, and
from them into the surrounding towns.  Although packinghouse laborers
are almost entirely immigrants from Mexico, their families comprise
the stable heart of these areas. Most have lived here for years. Jobs
in the sheds are a step up from the fields, with year-round work at 40
hours per week.

This part of agribusiness is by far Central Washington’s largest
employer, and the industry has successfully fought off unions for many
years. The virus may change that, however, if the strike wave becomes
the spark for creating a permanent organization among these workers.
It is undoubtedly what the companies fear when they see workers stop
the lines, and even more so, when they see farmworker union organizers
helping to sustain the walkouts.

“THE MOST IMPORTANT DEMAND FOR US is that we have a healthy
workplace and protection from the virus,” said Agustin Lopez, one of
the strike leaders at Allan Brothers. “Fourteen people have left
work over the last month because they have the COVID-19. So far as we
know, the company isn’t paying them. We need protections at work,
like adequate masks, and we want tests. How do we even know if any of
us have been infected if there are no tests?” (Allan Brothers Fruit
did not respond to phone and email requests for comment for this
story.)

He charges that Allan Brothers didn’t disinfect the plant and stop
production when the workers got sick. One worker, Jennifer Garton,
told the _Yakima Herald_, “They are not doing what they’re saying
they’re doing,” and that workers only heard about the cases of
COVID-19 in the plant through their own conversations.

According to Lopez, at the end of April the workers sent an email to
company managers, asking for better conditions, extra pay, and the
right to take off work. “People were taking their vacations or sick
leave or anything they could to stay home. The company said that if we
had worked for five weeks we could stay home, but they wouldn’t pay
us. We’re only making minimum wage, so how could we do that? And we
have no guarantee we would even have our jobs back if we don’t come
in to work now.”

In response to the demands, he says the company offered to buy the
workers lunch. Over a hundred workers rejected that and struck the
company.

The shed of another Yakima packer, Roche Fruit Company, did stop work
in April to disinfect the plant, after two workers had become
infected. Roche employees then also demanded hazard pay in a message
to managers. When the company offered an additional $200 per month,
the laborers stopped work after lunch on May 11. After an hour of
bargaining, the company offered them $100 per week instead, and they
went back to work. Operations manager Alfonso Pineda said the company
had already planned to give workers “gratitude pay” for working in
difficult circumstances.

“At the heart of the dissatisfaction of all these workers is the
fact they are essential workers, but their pay does not reflect
that,” says Edgar Franks, the political director of the new union
for Washington farm workers, Familias Unidas por la Justicia. He
explains that workers from both Roche and Allan Brothers got in touch
with them when they were getting ready to strike. “The walkouts then
started after management refused to raise their wages. At Roche, when
union organizers and leadership arrived, management quickly relented.
This is the power of the presence of the union.”

BUT FEAR IS DRIVING THE STRIKES, even more than wages. After walking
out of the packing plant, workers at Jack Frost stood in a big circle
six feet apart while Claudia, a striker, explained that they were
fighting for the health of their whole community. “We want everyone
to have a health examination, including our children and other people
possibly affected,” she declared.  “We want it for our whole
family, because we know the virus doesn’t just stay in the plant.
It’s outside too.”

At the rally in front of the Allan Brothers packinghouse, another
woman said the same thing: that the biggest question was whether they
could work without getting sick. “We have people who have been
affected in this shed,” she told Yakima city councilwoman Dulce
Gutierrez. “We want the company to guarantee that there are no more
people who have the virus here at work, so that we can protect
ourselves and our families.”

The working conditions themselves are responsible for much of the
danger, and Franks says the companies have not been responsive.
“Ever since the governor’s order [mandating physical distancing
and safe conditions], a lot of the safety measures haven’t reached
the workers inside.  The workers are elbow-to-elbow on the line,
packing the fruit going through there.  Workers got sick, and
they’re concerned that no one is looking after them or the wellbeing
of their family and friends still inside.”

Agustin Lopez has lived in the Yakima Valley and worked in its sheds
since 1985. His experience has made him cautious, therefore, about
predicting whether workers will decide if a permanent union is the
answer to their problems. But when he looks at the waves of people
leaving the apple sheds, each company encouraging the next one, he
thinks change is not just possible, but happening around him. “This
connection between us is something new,” he says, “and there are
people out here from lots of the plants. Maybe we are actually a
federation.” The answer will be determined by the strike, he
believes. “If the companies are willing to negotiate, we’ll listen
to what they have to say. And if not, then we will continue with our
strike.”

_Copyright 2020 Capital & Main  Reprinted with permission._

_David Bacon is a journalist and photographer covering labor,
immigration and the impact of the global economy on workers._

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