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Who we are: We are a diverse group of workers drawn together by our determination to make our lives better by joining a union. Since September 2004, we have been organizing to bring International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 17 into our workplace--Blue Diamond Growers' Sacramento, California processing plant, the largest almond plant in the world.
What we want: We want respect and recognition for our hard work. To us that means a union contract. Many of us have given almost 30 years of our lives to Blue Diamond. We should be able to sit down with our employer and negotiate wages that keep up with the cost of living, affordable health care and a safe and healthy workplace. Since we started organizing, Blue Diamond has raised our wages and made it easier to qualify for benefits. But we know we can only hold on to these gains by getting them in writing in a union contract.
How we plan to get it: When we began to organize, Blue Diamond hit us with firings, threats and interrogations. The National Labor Relations Board found the company guilty of more than 20 labor law violations in March 2006, but Blue Diamond never admitted wrongdoing. We've learned that the NLRB process alone can't protect our rights, and that NLRB elections simply aren't democratic. We're asking Blue Diamond to agree on fair ground rules for our union vote. The company has stubbornly refused, so we're calling on our allies in Sacramento and around the world to back our right to a free and fair election.
Updated: 3 hours 54 min ago Sacramento City Council steps in againThe Sacramento City Council stood up again April 1 for the Blue Diamond workers' right to organize and join the ILWU. The Council voted 7 – 1 to create an ad hoc committee which would talk with the company, the workers and the union to try to work out a fair election process agreeable to all. This marked the second time the Council had taken action for the Blue Diamond workers. At a packed and dramatic meeting Dec. 5, 2006, the Council passed a resolution urging the company to sign a neutrality agreement with the ILWU. Company management has not responded to that or any other input from the community it has called home for nearly 100 years--the community that gave it around $21 million in public aid in 1995 to keep it from leaving town. Even one of the Council members who gave thumbs down on the 2006 resolution approved of this year's call for an ad hoc committee. "Having the kind of dialogue my colleague is suggesting can only be helpful," Council member Robert King Fong said. "We have a responsibility to the employer and the employees at Blue Diamond to try to help resolve this situation." Read more about the Council meeting and other recent developments in the campaign here. César Chávez March takes action at BDGSacramento's eighth annual César Chávez March stopped for a brief rally in front of the Blue Diamond plant March 29. The Aztec dancers opened up, swaying their plumed head-dresses and rattling their leg-bracelets to the beat of their drummer (and the low-rider song playing on the sound system).
Blue Diamond Organizing Committee members Gene Esparza and Maria Arellano addressed the thousands of marchers, who represented dozens of unions and community groups. The workers have seen their conditions improve since they started organizing, Arellano said. "But we know why we made those gains, and we know we will lose them if we do not have a union." "All we want is a fair vote," Esparza said. "We want a fair vote, not a rigged vote, and we need your help to get it." Then the crowd marched up to the Blue Diamond gift shop and sat down for a minute in front of it, yelling and chanting support for the workers' right to organize.
New Bishop of Sacramento backs workers' rightsJaime Soto, the new Bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento, sent a message to the Blue Diamond workers on the occasion of the César Chávez March. "I make myself present through this message to support the righteous cause of the Blue Diamond workers to reach greater solidarity among themselves and struggle together as a whole for a better future for their families," Bishop Soto wrote. "Coming together in a union can serve as an effective instrument for furthering the common welfare and promoting the dignity of the worker as a brother and companion in the quest for a more righteous world." Youngdahl disses the BishopSacramento's new Bishop, Jaime Soto, wrote to Blue Diamond CEO Doug Youngdahl March 26. "Historically, the success of Blue Diamond Growers is the result of the growers' own efforts to work together for each others' benefits," the Bishop wrote. "The earnest ambitions of your employees are no different. I sincerely hope and pray that both the Growers and their employees will find an equitable accommodation to resolve this unnecessary labor-management tension." The Bishop also urged Blue Diamond to agree to fair ground rules for a union vote, and offered any of the parish halls in Sacramento as a location for the election. M.E.Ch.A. rallies for BDG workers
About 500 members of M.E.Ch.A. (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán) rallied in front of the Blue Diamond Growers plant March 21 during the group's national conference. They also took up chalk and paint to cover the pavement with drawings and messages of support for the Blue Diamond workers' long fight to join ILWU warehouse Local 17. The two blocks leading to the plant's main gate bloomed with solidarity greetings from as far away as Pennsylvania, Colorado and Arizona. "M.E.Ch.A.'s motto is 'La unión hace la fuerza,' in unity there is strength," said Steven Payan, a member of M.E.Ch. A. at Woodland Community College and an organizer of the support action. "These workers are part of us. They're people of color, people in the struggle. We know some of them are scared and we want to increase their hope and faith by letting them know we're behind them." |