Blue Diamond Workers United

By Denise Winebrenner Edwards - People's Weekly World, 12/14/06 13:23

By an overwhelming majority, Sheraton Grand Hotel employees ratified a union contract on Dec. 5 that contains higher wages, a lower workload, a doubling of employer-paid health benefits over the life of the contract, and a guarantee that the contract will continue even if the hotel is sold.

Most of the hotel workers gladly signed up to support employees at other hotels in their negotiations for better contracts. There are four other unionized hotels in Sacramento where contracts have expired.

"This is the first good solid contract in any Sacramento hotel," said Marco Hernandez, a six-year employee of the Sheraton Grand. "It's setting the standards for the other hotels."

Support from the workers at other hotels and casinos and from the community was crucial, he said. Besides coming out to large rallies outside the hotel and sending delegations to the Sheraton management, Sacramento unions and community organizations sent the hotel letters committing to support a boycott if it was launched.

"That would have cost them millions of dollars, so they came back to the table and made their last final offer better," Hernandez said.

On the same day, the Sacramento City Council passed a non-binding resolution calling on the Blue Diamond Almond Growers Cooperative to recognize their employees' union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, on the basis of a union card check.

Although some of the councilmembers said that the resolution was not pertinent to city affairs, the majority agreed with councilman Steve Cohn, who reminded them that in 1996 "the Council adopted historic measures to ensure that Blue Diamond stayed in the community." Besides giving the company public funds, the city closed off part of the public streets to form part of the Blue Diamond campus, Cohn said.

Since then, Blue Diamond, which produces around 70 percent of the world’s almond supply, has flourished, with last year’s revenue increased by 42 percent, Cohn said.

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