Blue Diamond Workers United

The 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.

Sacramento'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.

Jaime 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."

Sacramento'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.

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."

Several powerful allies on Capitol Hill agree with the ILWU that lawbreaking companies do not deserve public subsidies--and they've let the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture know.

Blue Diamond Growers has been getting some serious subsidies from the U.S. government for many years now. Since 2003, the USDA's Market Access Program (MAP) has given Blue Diamond and the California Almond Board more than $9 million to market California almonds overseas. Blue Diamond's status as a proven labor law-breaker hasn't stopped this funding.

Now the Agriculture Dept. is rewriting the rules for the MAP. The ILWU went to the agency's hearings on the rules changes, and proposed restrictions on funds for companies like Blue Diamond that violate the law.

ILWU Local 32 members put a little solidarity into their holiday preparations Dec. 21. Kenny Hudson, Cory Boyce, Bryan Soriano (with his son Anthony) and Aaron Shurte (a.ka. Rudolph) leafleted at the See's in Lynwood, WA--the store that houses regional corporate management.

The leafleters simply wanted See's to put a word in with Blue Diamond, and urge the almond company to agree to fair ground rules for a union election. The regional manager demanded they leave.

"She told us she had called the police and they had been dispatched and were coming our way," ILWU Organizer Jon Brier reported. "We thanked her, and again explained that we were not out to hurt See's--to which she responded, 'Well, you are!' When we reiterated that we are not here to cause trouble but See's needs to act responsibly, she said 'You do cause trouble. You come here in your dumb costumes and bother people.'

Mike Olivera came to the community forum for the Blue Diamond workers Sunday, Nov. 18. He showed up, because that's who he was. Ever since he decided he'd been wrong to fight the union, he'd been one of the steadiest members of the organizing committee.

"If Mike said he'd be there, I would know I could count on it," said Agustin Ramirez, ILWU's lead organizer on the Blue Diamond campaign. "There aren't a lot of people like that."

Mike showed up on Sunday. On Tuesday he died in heart surgery that was supposed to be routine. He was 61 years old. He had worked at Blue Diamond for 33 years. His younger brother and sister, Raulin and Maryl, and his daughter, Sarah, survive him.

At a packed community forum Nov. 18, eight Sacramento civic leaders promised to contact the management of Blue Diamond Growers in support of a fair and timely union election at the company's main processing plant.

"Something very exciting happened today," said Rev. Dr. David Thompson of Westminster Presbyterian Church, where the forum took place. "As a community, we're getting more and more serious about seeing a fair resolution to the labor situation at Blue Diamond."

Dr. Thompson sat on the panel at the forum, along with State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, Sacramento City Council member Steve Cohn, Joan B. Lee of the Gray Panthers, Chris Jones of ACORN, Gary Passmore from the Congress of California Seniors, Professor Paul Burke from Sacramento State University and Guambry Santillan from Sacramento City College MEChA.