Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 36

KEPUBUC CITY (2 The Arizona Republic MAIL Phoenix, Oct. 1, 1971 C0--4 Growers fight Chavez Chicanos follow Lettuce stri sin te egroes' path Nationwide boycott gains results for field workers mm toward equality he reaps lt United Press International By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press lliliiiiiliiilillv ppliiiii SALINAS, Calif. The lettuce strike launched by Cesar Chavez in the Salinas Valley "salad bowl" is a bitter union battle that has pitted priest against priest, grower against grower and Mexican-American against Mexican-American. Fresh from the success of a five-year strike and boycott against California ta-bl grapes, Chavez has launched a nationwide lettuce boycott to gain recognition of his AFLrCIO United Farm Workers Organizing Committee.

He has also threatened to extend the strike to other states and Southern California. Slowly but surely, he is getting some results. The largest lettuce grower in the 100-mile-long valley, made famous by John Steinbeck, has signed with Chavez. Ten strawberry growers, an artichoke grower, two tomato growers and two other lettuce growers are in negotiations with UFWOC. A majority of growers, however, has pledged to fight Chavez.

The California Council of Growers and the Western Growers Association announced plans Friday to try to combat the boycott. Both said they were distributing information to major food chains and associations saying their lettuce also is union-produced under a Teamsters union contract. Chavez has urged a boycott in 64 cities of all lettuce sold without the union label of the UFWOC, saying the Teamster pacts are "sweetheart contracts." For most large growers, the strike, which began Aug. 24, represents an attempt by Chavez to destroy contracts they have signed with the Teamsters. For smaller independent growers, it means a fight against all unionization until federal farm labor legislation is passed prohibiting strikes during harvest.

For Chavez, the strike is the "hump" in his effort to unionize an estimated 7,000 farm workers in the Salinas Valley and thousands of others throughout fornia and the Southwest especially since most Salinas growers have land in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and the Imperial Valley in extreme southern California. To the U.S. housewife, the strike has meant skyrocketing vegetable prices with solid head lettuce that would normally be a dime or 15 cents a head selling in some places for 49 cents. To the grower, it has meant a lost or partly-lost harvest of lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, artichokes and other bles and the frustration of watching a year's work rot in the fields. To the striking farm workers, it has meant more than four weeks without pay, of getting up at 4 a.m.

to picket and of eating dinners of beans, bread and canned fruit salad at a UFWOC strike kitchen in a grimy old labor camp. The Salinas Valley is the third richest agricultural area in California. It produced $140 million worth of vegetables in 1969. As estimated 70 per cent of the nation's solid head lettuce $49 million in 1969 grows in the valley's checkerboard farms. The area also turns out $18 million of celery, $16 million of fresh tomatoes and substantial quantities of other "salad bowl" ingredients.

In the complex cast of characters and issues, the big question mark is the Teamsters. Just as Chavez was signing contracts with the grape growers of Delano, about 150 miles across California, last July and preparing to start negotiations in Salinas, the Western Conference of Teamsters announced it had signed five-year contracts with the major vegetable growers. Chavez said he had been laying the groundwork for UFWOC in Salinas since 1962 and claimed the support of 90 per cent of the farm workers there. He accused the growers of bringing in the Teamsters to thwart him and said the pacts violated a 1967 agreement with the Teamsters giving him jurisdiction over field hands. The Teamsters agreed Aug.

12 to let UFWOC organize the field hands but the growers balked and Chavez called the strike. William O. Garin, the oldest lettuce grower and shipper in the Salinas Valley and one of those who signed with the Teamsters, countered that the growers did not bring in the Teamsters. "We were in the middle of negotiations with the Teamsters on our truck drivers and while we were negotiating we'd see Teamster officials all the time," he said. "This just came up." Unorganized workers were getting $1.75 before the struggle between the two unions started.

The Teamsters signed the growers to contracts. The one contract Chavez has won so far, with Inter Harvest, a United Fruit Co. subsidiary, provides a minimum plus 10 per cent for fringe benefits. Both sides are mum on efforts to resolve the union infighting. Chavez said: "There are some of our friends in the labor movement who are in contact with them." Associated Press Cesar Chavez, who launched a nationwide lettuce boycott to gain recognition of his AFL-CIO UFWOC, relaxes in a room adjoining headquarters When President Nixon visited the Los Angeles County Music Center last month for an evening of light opera, several hundred Mexican Americans were across the street, chanting "viva la raza" "Long live the race" and waving picket signs.

The moratorium rally that erupted into violence Aug. 29 began when some 7,000 persons paraded to Lagu-na Park to hear speeches by farm leader Cesar Chavez and others. A report of looting at a nearby liquor store resulted in sheriffs deputies moving into the edge of the park. Rock and bottle throwing began. By the end of the afternoon, the Mexican-American business district on Whittier Boulevard was a shambles.

A few hours later, Ruben Salazar, 42, news director for Spanish-language television station KMEX, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and an outspoken advocate of Mexican-American causes, was killed when sheriff's deputies fired tear gas into the Silver Dollar Cafe, a few blocks away. The deputies were called to the bar by a man who said he saw two armed men enter it. An inquest into the death has brought a procession of witnesses with different stories and angry accusations. "If the truth doesn't come out now, we're always going to be cutting each other's throats," said Manuel Lopez, a Mexican-American businessman. The inquest, which has centered more on the origins of the riot than on the death of Salazar, has been criticized by Mexican-Americans as a "whitewash." On the opening day of the hearing, the courtroom had to be cleared after spectators shouted, "What has this to do with the death of Ruben Salazar?" Last Wednesday, on the anniversary of Mexico's independence from Spain, the Mexican-American community held another parade and rally, which again ended in violence.

Sixty-eight persons were arrested and 88 injured. Sheriff Peter Pitchess blamed "dissidents and agitators" for the second major disturbance in three weeks in the nation's largest Mexican-Ameri can community, but organizers said it was because they were deprived of a rally site. The next day Mexican-American inmates of a youth training school at nearby Chino went on a rampage which officials said "probably" was touched off by reports of violence in East Los Angeles. Friday night more than 150 Mexican-American youths in Redlands, just east of here, battled law enforcement officers for more than two hours. Tear gas was used to disperse the crowd.

Medina says, "The social hurts are deep and they often even have been rubbed with the salt of official neglect. These hurts made up the agenda for social action." power struggle jn Salinas Valley Associated Press LOS ANGELES Within three blocks of Los Angeles city hall there are newspaper stands with no headlines in English, movie marquees entirely in Spanish and clothing stores with signs in the window: "Se habla espanol." The 800,000 Spanish-speaking persons in this city are not all immigrants. Some of them were born here, and some of them have grandparents who were born here. Mexican-Americans are indigenous to the Southwest, and the area has taken on shades of their culture to just about the same degree as they have assimilated into its culture. The street names here are Spanish, and so are the names of the cities.

Houses and furniture are built Spanish-style, and it's easier to buy a taco than a hot dog. But in the schools, all the classes are in English. Eight out of 10 Mexican-American children drop out, some after years of sitting in a classroom where they didn't understand a word that was spoken. There's only one Mexican-American assemblyman in the state legislature, only one Spanish-surnamed congressman and not a single Mexican-American on the City Council or the county board of supervisors, despite the fact that 15 per cent of the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area is Mexican-American. Studies show the average income for Mexican-Americans is well below the average for the whole area.

"Like the Negroes, the Mexican-American people have been considered a source of docile menial labor, and like the Negro, the Mexican-Americans have been thought incapable of militant social action," says Rodolfo Medina, a national consultant on Mexican-American studies for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. "The fact is that today Mexican-Americans are no longer sitting in the anterooms waiting to be judged. Their struggle for full membership in American society has begun." The word "chicano" has become familiar in the Southwest in the past few years. Older Mexicans don't like it. They say it is derived from the Castilian word "chicanero" for one who practices fraud.

But younger Latins say it comes from the words "Mexicano" and "chico" which means little one, or kid. "The young people use the term chicano to refer to themselves and the Mexican-American people in genera 1," says Mexican-American newsman Roberto Cruz. Young activists walked out of several East Los Angeles high schools in 1968 in a protest over the failure of the educational system to deal with language and cultural differences. In the past few weeks, trouble in the Mexican-American community has become even more obvious. fellow picket fly UFWOC banner during ley Independent Growers, said: "There has been a great deal of coercion of working people in the fields and in their homes by this unionizing effort." Chavez countered: "Some people have been shot at here.

They are more savage here, I would say, than in Delano." Dolores Huerta, UFWOC vice president and chief negotiator, said the Farm Bureau Federation, Right to Work Committee, John Birch Society, Teamsters and the citizens committee have turned the dispute into "a racial thing." "It's all slanted to be anti-Mexican," she said. "We've had a lot more violence, but when you fan hatreds, that's what happens." Hayes said, "The whole racism deal, the whole case of huelga (strike), has all emanated from this organizing committee affiliated with the AFL-CIO. "They're involved by waving the Mexican flag over and over again, by having mass rallies and talking about the heritage of the Mexican-Americans, and of interjecting religion," he said. A Teamsters spokesman said, "It's a very complex and complicated situation and everything possible is being done to bring about an amicable solution." The Teamsters released Inter Harvest from their contract and have released several other growers who have agreed to recognize Chavez, including Freshpict Foods, a subsidiary of Purex Corp. Ltd.

But it is unclear what they intend to do about their remaining contracts with an estimated 70 Salinas Valley growers. The rank-and-file membership of the Teamsters local in Salinas has opposed rescinding of contracts. While Chavez' supporters ignored a court order against picketing and set up lines at ranches of growers who hadn't signed with UFWOC, a group of irate citizens and small farmers began coun-terpicketing at Inter Harvest. Its operations were halted for several days. The strikers, mostly Mexican-Americans who speak English and Spanish, were out picketing at 5 a.m., trying to keep workers out of the fields and shouting "Viva Chavez" to passing trucks.

The counterpickets, calling themselves "Citizens Committee for Agriculture," blocked the driveways at Inter Harvest. As the trucks rolled out, they screamed: "Communist." About 175 Chavez supporters were arrested, most for violating the antipicket order. A few anti-Chavez counterpickets were arrested for obstructing the Inter Harvest driveway. Two weeks ago, a Monterey County Superior Court judge ruled that the dispute was a jurisdictional battle between Chavez and the Teamsters not a strike and prohibited UFWOC from mass picketing. In launching the lettuce boycott Sept.

10 Chavez said the court ruling was a major factor. Herb Fleming, a spokesman for grower-shippers who have signed with the Teamsters, branded the boycott "a last resort." Growers estimate about 1,500 workers joined Chavez' picket lines initially, but they say nearly all have returned to work under Teamster contracts. "The only people left here are Chavez' hard core organizers about 300 of them," one grower spokesman said. A UFWOC spokesman said the union had paid strike benefits to 4,600 people for picketing at various times during the strike. Fleming claimed growers are now harvesting lettuce "at the normal rate" but the Federal Market News Service said growers have been shipping about 195,000 cartons of lettuce daily compared with 242,000 cartons daily during the same period last year.

Each carton contains 24 heads of lettuce. Each side has accused the other of provoking violence. Jack Hayes, head of the Salina Val lrJx -T JJ Mvl -vy A. 3 t. XMmmJh mmm.m, mmmmmmd ftfaft I rf A'- 2 iliiaiiiiiliiiii ismSBggm i 'S.

i I'll 'MmBKyv rfftiMV fMWM't-WM WtV-'smmMi'S PSS: TVr t'M? ip; mmm istiis yM AssociMed Press Willian O. Garin, oldest lettuce grower in Salinas Valley, signed with the a' Teamsters and says growers did not bring in the Teamsters Steven Borjas, 22, and unsepn.