By Leilani Albano

The LA Times four-part series about the United Farm Workers has sparked a fury among those in the progressive community.

In last week’s articles, Times author Miriam Pawel lodges a host of allegations against the UFW.

Most damaging of all, the Times author says that the union has abandoned founder Caesar Chavez’s mission of aiding farm workers.

Unlike the UFW of the 1960s and 1970s, when the organization launched the widely successful grape boycotts and implemented major changes for workers, today’s union does little to help farm laborers, Pawel reports.

However, not everyone agrees with her assessment.
"It is one pack of lies after another."

That was long-time UFW spokesman, Marc Grossman.

"The fact is, thousands of farm workers benefit everyday from the United Farm Workers efforts…32 election victories, dozens of news UFW contracts, with some of the largest strawberry, rose, winery, mushroom firms in California and the nation. We dedicate up to fifty percent of the union’s resources to organizing, which is among the highest of any union."

Grossman also points to the organization’s recent successes in passing major farm worker protections including last year’s regulations to prevent heat deaths in the fields, binding mediation laws in 2002, new remedies for workers cheated by contractors, the Agjobs bill, as well as an upcoming immigration reform measure.

Despite the union’s achievements, the conditions of most farm workers remain grim. As Pawel points out, the UFW represents only 1 percent of the 450,000 farm laborers in the state. A majority of them, she reports, still earn poverty wages and lack decent housing.

While Grossman does not refute these facts, he points to the intimidation tactics used by growers such as the Giumarra Vineyards during the company’s elections last year. He says that their actions prevented more workers from voting in favor of having a union.

"But in the last couple of days before the balloting, Giumarra told worker's if you vote for the UFW, you’re going to get fired if you’re without papers, you’ll lose company housing, we’re going to convert from table grapes to wine grapes, which would result in substantial job losses and other intimidations and threats."

David Bacon is a KPFA programmer who specializes in labor issues and is a former UFW organizer. He says that author Miriam Pawel’s discussion on the lack of housing is faulty.

"I think Ms. Pawel raises legitimate questions about the housing trust, which include, are the resources of the trust being used to construct housing for farmworkers?

But then again here, she is pointing again to the lack of housing without asking the obvious question. Why is there such a crisis among farmworkers in California? And the reason for that is growers tore down their labor camps in the 1970s and the 1980s and refused to take any responsibility for the housing of their workers."

While farm workers continue to languish in poor conditions, Pawel says UFW leaders engage in profit-making ventures. This includes their network of union-related operations that are dominated by the Chavez family and friends, as well as the United Farm Worker-product line displaying the organization label.

In addition, she says union leaders initiate projects and launch political campaigns that do little to help farm workers.

Bacon had this to say about the UFW’s activities.

"I think that you can legitimately ask this question about every union in the United States. Is it organizing workers effectively? Are the resources of the union being adequately mobilized in order to organize? And I think that the answer you’re going to get in almost every case is really, no. That there is a lot the unions can do and need to do about organizing workers. And that includes the United Farm Workers."

Although Bacon agrees with Pawel on several points, he says the Times reporter ultimately fails to give a true understanding of the UFW.
"This current series I think represents a turning away by the paper to really taking a look at the real problems of farm workers, where they’re coming from, whose responsible for them, what the union’s responsibility is, inside that context."

Moreso, Pawel’s stories, he says, reflects the Times’ growing conservative bias against the union and farm workers.

"There are certain things that are happening at the LA Times that make one think the paper is moving to the right. Moving Robert Sheer for instance from the op-ed page, and other things like that make you wonder whether or not the paper has decided to take a more right wing, pro-Republican line, and of course in California, what that means is lining up with the growers and the Republican party."

For Workers Independent News, this is Leilani Albano