MODESTO BEE

June 14, 2005

Boycott Gallo wines, UFW will say today

By TIM MORAN
BEE STAFF WRITER

The long and acrimonious relationship between E.&J. Gallo Winery and the United Farm Workers union is taking another bitter turn today with a scheduled announcement of a union boycott of the winery's products.

The UFW is launching a national boycott of Gallo wines to protest the lack of progress on a new contract for vineyard workers at the winery's Gallo of Sonoma properties.

The North Coast operation produces the company's premium brands. In addition to the flagship Gallo of Sonoma wines, it also turns out such brands as Rancho Zabaco, Frei Brothers, Indigo Hills and Anapamu.

No bargaining sessions have taken place since August, although the two sides dispute who's at fault for that.

The company contends UFW representatives walked away from the August session and have refused six requests to return to the bargaining table.

The union contends that the bargaining sessions last summer were a waste of time because the company refused to change its positions, despite the presence of a mediator.

A bargaining session has been scheduled for June 21 in Santa Rosa.

Complex issues

The bargaining issues are complicated because Gallo doesn't directly employ most of the workers. They work for farm labor contractors. Of the more than 300 employees covered by the UFW contract, only about 80 are full-time workers hired directly by Gallo, said Marc Grossman, a spokesman for the union.

Gallo employees receive full benefits, including medical and dental coverage, paid holidays and vacations, Grossman said.

But the farm labor contractors' employees only get whatever salary increases the union bargains for, Grossman said. "The pay increases have been miserly," he added.

Farm labor contracts aren't unusual in the grape industry, Grossman admitted, but they pose problems for the union because most of the represented workers don't get much for their dues.

Winery spokesman John Segale said Gallo offered to hire contracted workers directly and give them benefits.

Grossman said many of the contracted workers are undocumented and unable to get through Gallo's hiring process.

He contends that the base pay rate in the contract, $8.38 an hour, is significantly less than what other growers in Sonoma pay vineyard workers.

Gallo, in a statement, said that it implemented an interim wage increase April 4 because the winery didn't want "the workers to suffer from the UFW's continued stalling."

The increase was 20 cents an hour, bringing the wage to $8.38, Grossman said. Other Sonoma County growers, union and nonunion, pay $9 to $10 an hour, he said.

The union has been battling Gallo in Sonoma County for more than a decade. The union won the right to represent the Gallo of Sonoma vineyard workers in 1994, but was unable to reach a contract until 2000.

The sticking point was benefits for contracted employees, and the union finally capitulated to get a contract.

A union decertification battle took place in 2003, which led to unfair labor practice charges being filed against Gallo.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board invalidated the decertification vote in November, ruling that the company had illegally supported the vote. Gallo appealed, and the ballots never have been counted.

Bad blood between the UFW and Gallo goes back more than 30 years.

Long, tense history

The UFW had a contract to represent vineyard workers in Gallo's valley operations in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Teamsters union began negotiating with Gallo on behalf of those workers in 1973, the UFW called a strike and a national boycott of Gallo wines. The Teamsters won a union election, and the boycott faded away.

But a new boycott has the potential to be much more effective, Grossman said.

The Internet allows the union to reach sympathetic groups in days, rather than the months it took UFW organizers in the 1970s to travel across the country and set up grocery store pickets, Grossman said.

The boycott can be effective if it slows sales by 1 percent or 2 percent, Grossman said, and

"5 percent can be devastating."

"César Chávez had a saying: 'Boycotts are better than elections, because the polls never close and you can vote more than once,'" Grossman said.

Segale called the boycott "ridiculous" in light of the union's refusal to meet with Gallo for the past 10 months.

"We want a new contract. The workers deserve a new contract," Gallo said in statement.

"The UFW's proposed boycott against the industry's largest union-represented winery makes no sense since it could hurt union workers the most. It is time for the UFW to return to the bargaining table and negotiate a new contract," the Gallo statement says.

The boycott announcement is scheduled to take place at a rally at noon today at San Francisco City Hall.