NAPA VALLEY

A complaint against Napa-based Hess Collection Winery brought on by Agricultural Labor Relations Board attorneys in 2006 on behalf of 20 farmworkers reached a conclusion Saturday morning at Fairfield Inn & Suites in American Canyon. The farmworkers each received a share of a $225,000 settlement agreement that their union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1096, reached with the winery.

The complaint includes 36 individual charges that stem from a 1999 union election in which the farmworkers voted for union representation under the guidance of the ALRB.

"In 1999, the workers had an election there through the ALRB and we won the election," said Pete Maturino, UFCW Local 5 Agricultural Division director. "First ... they wanted to do a test case and refused to bargain after we won the election. The company refused to bargain for the next five or four years and during that period of time there were several people terminated for unjust causes. There were people who were denied wage increases, denied benefits, holiday pay and things like that."

One of the workers, Victor Herrera, 45, had worked at the winery 17 years before he was terminated. Herrera said that he was told that he was fired for taking an extra vacation day that he was not entitled to take, but said that he feels his termination boiled down to his involvement in the union.

On Saturday Herrera, who has not returned to work at Hess Collection Winery and has since moved to Madera County, received a $16,000 check.

"I think it's a little less than what I deserve just because what I was earning at the winery, I am not earning now," he said.

Herrera plans to put a down payment on a home with the money he received Saturday, he said. Another farmworker, Valentin Sanchez, 33, said he didn't have plans for the money, but said that it would be a big help. Sanchez currently works for Hess Collection Winery as a machine operator.

Although Saturday's check ceremony settled 36 complaints, the union still has about six unresolved complaints against the winery as well as a contract to iron out, Maturino said.

In 2003, an amendment to the Agricultural Labor Relations Act mandated that the ALRB impose a labor contract on unions and employers who fail to negotiate a contract within six months of a union election. According to Maturino, Hess Collection Winery appealed the ALRB's imposed contract, but eventually accepted it. The contract expires in July, Maturino said, and the union and Hess Collection will negotiate a new one -- at which time they will address the remaining charges against the winery.

This recent victory for the 20 farmworkers comes at a time when 27 former employees of St.-Helena based Charles Krug Winery, members of United Farm Workers labor union, are involved in a labor dispute with their former employer.

Although the UFW union members scored a victory against Charles Krug Winery last week when the ALRB ruled against the winery, it could be August or later until the matter gets resolved either by mediation or by bringing the matter in front of an administrative law judge said Freddy Capuyan, ALRB's regional director in Salinas.

"The wheels of justice are pretty slow," Maturino said. "And it's unfortunate, but that's just the way it is."

Hess Collection Winery officials did not return calls by press time.