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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2002
Historic Oregon farm worker win
Farm workers in Oregon have
reached an agreement that ends a ten-year dispute with a cooperative of growers.
The Campaign for Labor Rights, a coordinating organization for solidarity with
grassroots workers' struggles, has announced that Pineros y Campesinos Unidos
del Noroeste (PCUN) and NORPAC Foods Inc. reached an agreement on Feb. 15 as a
result of mediation. The agreement provides for a set of guidelines for
relations between farm workers and growers in the state of Oregon. PCUN publicized its dispute with NORPAC through a boycott of
the company's products, many of which are supplied to university cafeterias.
Student activists nationwide took up the boycott, and pressured their
institutions to drop deals with NORPAC. The level of student activity was so
intense that Sodexo, North America's largest provider of institutional food
services, intervened with NORPAC to recommend that the company recognize the
union. In the statement released by the growers and the union, Ramon
Ramirez, PCUN's president, said, "This is an historic accomplishment for
farm workers, who will now have clear and enforceable guidelines that provide
them with an opportunity to elect PCUN to represent them." —Kevin Michaels |
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