Boycott Gallo Wines

From the painfully tedious work of pruning to the brutally rushed pace of harvest, working the grape fields is labor-intensive. A typical day begins at 6 a.m., and the work continues into the hot hours of the afternoon, ending around 4 p.m. This hard work is rewarded with low pay and few benefits.

The workers of Gallo in Sonoma County have been fighting to improve working conditions, making strides to overcome an eight year drought in wage increases. However, while some Gallo workers now earn $8.18 an hour, have 8 days of vacation and receive health benefits for themselves and for their families, the majority do not. Those workers who have been denied these benefits are hired through farm labor contractors (FLCs), which are third party agencies. This contract loophole denies 75 percent of Gallo workers these hard fought benefits. This inequality is at the heart of the current battle being fought by the United Farm Workers Union of America (UFW).

On June 14, 2005, the UFW announced the official boycott of all E & J Gallo, Inc. labels in an act of solidarity with Gallo farm workers in Sonoma County. UFW President Arturo Rodriguez states, “We will ask millions of people of good will to respond to an appeal for them to act constructively by convincing the Gallos to do the responsible thing. And in the end, we will succeed.”

Neither Gallo nor the UFW workers are strangers to these conflicts. Salvador Mendoza, a former Gallo worker and a long-time UFW Union Organizer, stated that the Gallo family is notorious for their anti-union values and poor treatment of workers and. In turn, the workers have had a long history of fighting back.

In 1973, the UFW led the way in asserting rights for farm workers during the first Gallo boycott. During that time, workers suffered from horrendous working conditions. Even very basic provisions were not available; there were no bathrooms and drinking water was inaccessible, if available at all. Leader Cesar Chavez urged the community to vote with their dollars against the abuse of farm workers in California.

A 1975 Louis Harris poll showed that over a million consumers were respecting the Gallo Boycott. The successful boycott and other gains of the 1970’s brought about changes that at one time were unthinkable. The current conflict represents a new opportunity to confront injustices.

Gallo workers in Sonoma County are on the front lines of these struggles. In 1994 the workers overwhelmingly voted for Union recognition, and in 2000 signed their first contract. This five-year struggle ran into a wall when the company refused to extend health benefits, seniority, grievance/arbitration procedure and vacation to workers employed through FLCs. The full benefits of the 2000 contract strictly covered direct-hires but only offered a tentative agreement to revisit the FLC workers’ needs in the next contract. At that time, the majority of the labor force consisted of direct-hires. Today, FLC workers constitute more then 75 percent of Gallo’s farm labor. Gallo is clinging fiercely to an industry trend that offers companies a free pass from worker compensation claims and the provision of employee benefits.

FLCs provide an erratic workforce that is practically immune to being organized. FLC workers are mostly young Mexican men who have immigrated from Puebla, Michuacan and Oaxaca. These immigrants do not cross the desert on a five day hike with only the clothes, water and food they can carry to then fight the injustices of the California farm labor system; they come in search of fair work. Gallo and other corporate wine giants understand that and use it in their favor. The FLC loophole is exploited by almost all growers in the industry and the UFW is fighting back. When the contract expired in November of 2003, the question of the FLCs became the focal point of the negotiations.

Given the workers’ insistence on including the FLCs in future contracts, it is no surprise that Gallo is fighting back. In January 2004, the winemaker was charged by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) with unfair labor practices. Company foremen and supervisors were found circulating and directing workers to sign a decertification petition to oust the UFW. Decertification is only valid, however, when the request to decertify the union is driven by the workers themselves. In November 2004, the ALRB unanimously ruled that the decertification attempted had been maneuvered by the company and charged Gallo with unfair labor practices.

Throughout the negotiations, workers charge that dishonesty and ill-will on the part of Gallo have become more and more evident; this helps to further their resolve. Though their organizing efforts have been strong, they have not achieved all their goals. Gallo continues to deny additional benefits to employees working under FLCs. The UFW bargaining committee has offered a counter-proposal to provide the FLC workers with an end-of-season bonus. The grape harvest ends in December, a month when workers traditionally go back to Mexico. In a clear example of bad-faith negotiating, the Gallo’s counter-offer promised to pay the workers this bonus in January. However, Gallo knows that it is never certain that a worker will return the next season, or that the supervisor of the FLC will choose to re-hire the worker.

By enacting a commercial boycott of Gallo products, the public can hold this wine giant accountable for fair labor practices, preventing them from taking advantage of the FLC loophole. A successful boycott will impact Gallo economically, thereby pushing the company to comply with worker demands—mainly, equal benefits for direct hires and FLC workers.

California’s wine consumption alone is twice the national average. The state’s buying power can be an effective tool in bringing justice to the people who put food on our table and wine in our glasses. First UFW Vice President, Irv Herschembalm, sums up the situation this way: “After nineteen months of trying to get Gallo to respect the workers, it has become clear that the only thing Gallo respects is power . . . so we are taking the power to the community.”

Vanessa Rhodes grew up in the Central Valley. She worked during 2004 as an Organizer/Contract Administrator in Sonoma and Napa counties. She is currently representing homecare workers in Contra Costa County with SEIU-United Healthcare Workers-West.