City Council votes to encourage an early resolution of the Blue Diamond standoff

One vote short of unanimous, the Sacramento City Council decided to support the Blue Diamond workers Tuesday night by calling on Mayor Heather Fargo to create an ad hoc committee of no more than four members of the council. Councilmember Steve Cohn was appointed to chair it.

The committee would meet informally with representatives of Blue Diamond management, workers and the International Longshore Warehouse Union to mediate the longstanding conflict over how the workers will decide whether or not they want a union. The works now say they would be willing to have a secret ballot election as long as the company agrees to some additional rules to make the process fairer.

Previously, Susan Brauner, spokeswoman for the plant, said that Blue Diamond has a worker's rights policy and that workers have a right to a secret ballot election without fear from management.

But where the election will be held is a key factor. The workers will be asking to vote in a neutral location, such as a church or a school, basically anywhere away from the workplace, away from the boss. As one supporter said, “It’s where employees can make up their own minds free from intimidation or fear.”

In its 96-year existence, Blue Diamond Growers workers have never been unionized but for the last three years, some have solicited help from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to form one. And all the while, management has refused to meet with union leaders and even members of the city council to discuss the idea of a contract.

According to the AFL-CIO, an administrative law judge of the National Labor Relations Board found the company guilty of 21 labor law violations including firing two union supporters, threatening to close the plant, threatening that workers will lose wages, pensions and benefits if they are unionized, interrogating workers about their union activities, disciplining workers in response for their union support and soliciting workers grievances and promising to make changes.

Opponents would have you believe that the city council has no jurisdiction over the matter, that it’s simply a matter for the NLRB, but the city gave Blue Diamond economic incentives reportedly valued at about $21 million, including a grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, land the city acquired from Union Pacific Railroad, rebates for energy efficiency from SMUD, state and local job-training credits and lastly property tax reimbursements.

So supporters inevitably argued that the city has a responsibility in this matter. “Why did they come to the city in ’95? For $21 million. Will they return the money? If anyone asks for public assistance, they have to be held accountable.”

The average employee tenure is 28 years at the plant. The numbers of full-time employees versus part-time is in dispute and being researched by city staff because management claims 700, while union organizers say there are 300-400 temporary workers. They argue that the company is manipulating the hours in their favor, which is important because when the city entered into the agreements in 1995, one requirement was that Blue Diamond employ at least 700 full-time equivalent employees in Sacramento.

Tuesday’s vote came after recent protests that brought out hundreds of students from MEChA and included a symbolic stop at Blue Diamond along the route of the annual Cesar Chavez march. On March 21, 500 MEChA students staged a rally at the plant. It was the first time in 20 years that the workers were given Good Friday off of work so as not to witness the rally, the dissent. Then about a week later, for Cesar Chavez day, Aztec dancers, farmworkers, union leaders, Blue Diamond workers and labor supporters marched through the plant, sat down, held a moment of silence, then began dancing and making music.
As one worker put it “management’s running scared” because of all of the recent activity.