1985–1987 Watsonville Cannery strike

The facilities were owned by Watsonville Canning and Richard A. Shaw Inc., two of the largest frozen food processors in the United States, while the workers were all union members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 912.

Richard A. Shaw Inc., another major food processing company in the city, similarly began requesting wage and benefits reductions, which were opposed by the local union.

[5][11][6] By 1986, the city, with a population of about 27,000,[note 2] was processing about 40 percent of the frozen broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green peppers, and spinach produced in the United States.

[19] The company, which by the 1980s was owned by Watsonville native Mort Console,[3] produced frozen vegetables for Birds Eye and private supermarket brands.

[20] Starting in the 1960s, the industry began recruiting female workers, primarily Mexican immigrants from South Texas, to work in the Pajaro Valley.

[10] Watsonville's food processing industry provided many of these immigrants with more stable employment than that of farmworkers, and the city became a center of a growing Latino population.

[21] Through the 1980s and 1990s, the city grew at an annual rate of about 38 percent, due in large part to Latino immigration,[22] and many during this time were able to rise into the middle class.

[3] Regarding the economic disparities between Latinos and white Americans, scholar Erik Davis once referred to Watsonville as "a poor town with a large, struggling migrant population".

[27] Both the UCAPAWA and the FTA were affiliate unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which had been founded in the 1930s as an alternative to the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL).

[27] In the mid-1940s, the AFL-affiliated International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) began to also organize workers in California, often in direct competition to union efforts from the FTA.

[34] According to activist Frank Bardacke, "the bosses allowed the union officials a good deal of personal power, as long as they refrained from challenging the employer's prerogatives in production or encouraging workers to organize themselves".

[41][note 4] During negotiations, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service became involved,[39] and by September, the company implemented a base hourly pay for existing employees of $4.75,[38] with new hires earning $4.25.

[39] In addition, Watsonville Canning instituted an increase in production quotas for broccoli processing,[47] which was in violation of an agreement the company had with the union.

[7] In an article for the Los Angeles Times, union officials stated that the speedups and policy changes made during mid-1985 were intended to force a strike in sentiments that were echoed by Charles Craypo, head of the economics department at the University of Notre Dame, who said, "Companies today are taking the offensive, doing things to weaken unions and sometimes forcing them into strikes that they can’t win".

[3][11][57][52] According to academic Margie Brown-Coronel, the strike was not only to oppose the company's wage decreases and benefits reductions, but "also ... to protest lack of leadership and support required of the Teamsters Union".

[60] In response to the picketing, the district attorney and Console, who stated that he "feared for [his] personal safety", requested Santa Cruz County Superior Court[3] Judge William Kelsay to issue a temporary restraining order against the strikers, which he granted at 8 p.m. that day,[15] within 15 hours of the start of the strike.

[7][15] By 1 a.m. on September 10, the police had cleared the area around Watsonville Canning, and they issued their first citation against a striker after someone struck a delivery truck with a picket sign.

[61] As part of the agreement, the workers accepted an hourly pay rate of $5.85,[45] which, while higher than the $5.05 Shaw had proposed prior to the strike, was still significantly lower than the previous industry standard.

[16] Additionally, the contract contained language that would allow the company and union to renegotiate wages if Watsonville Canning settled with their employees for a lower rate.

[61] According to Chavelo Moreno, a member of the Strike Committee, the agreement set a wage ceiling for industry, which made it more difficult for the Watsonville Canning employees to negotiate a higher rate.

[3] The local had also requested that Watsonville Canning disclose their private financial information as part of contract negotiations, but Verduzco stated that the company would only do so if the union paid a $500,000 fine.

[63] Jackson, who by this time was seeking the presidency of the United States in the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primaries, again addressed the crowd, where he drew comparisons between the strike and the Selma to Montgomery marches during the civil rights movement.

This idea to put pressure on Wells Fargo had initially been proposed in November 1985 by UFW president and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez.

[73] The Strike Committee's decision to meet with Chavez was against the wishes of the IBT, who were opposed to the UFW and had competed directly against that union in organizing farm workers in the 1970s.

[73] A vote was scheduled that would include both striking union members and non-striking workers to decide whether Local 912 would continue to represent the workforce at Watsonville Canning.

[73] Local 912 began gathering union members, including those who had moved as far away as Texas and Mexico, to return to Watsonville to vote against decertification.

[45][50] Following the failed decertification vote, Console's financial situation deteriorated, and Watsonville Canning closed for 11 days before reopening with funding from a new $930,000 loan from Wells Fargo.

[71] By September, the Los Angeles Times reported that the local had been waging a "corporate campaign" against Watsonville Canning's creditors for the past three months.

[3] A 1986 article from the Los Angeles Times stated that the strike had "devastated" Watsonville, highlighting the increased rates of violence and the impact on the local economy.

[58] In 1991, Green Giant relocated their facilities from Watsonville to Mexico,[78] and more companies moved during the 1990s after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.