Fruit Firm Subject Of Lawsuit Workers Claim Apple Grower Retaliated After Strike

Twenty-eight farm workers have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against an Orondo, Wash.,-based apple grower for discriminatory and retaliatory conduct.

The complaint claims that Auvil Fruit Co.Inc. harassed and pressured workers who took part in a four-day strike and picket line at the company’s property near Vantage last September.

“Auvil Fruit Co. was surprised to hear of a threatened lawsuit by some of its employees,” the company said in a release. The company received a copy of the complaint Monday, but had not yet prepared a response.

The United Farm Workers of America and employees of the fruit company organized the Sept. 1-4 strike to protest working conditions.

According to the complaint, the fruit company threatened the striking workers with termination and intimidated them by videotaping the picket line.

While many workers can take such complaints to the National Labor Relations Board, farm workers aren’t covered under the Labor Relations Act. Taking the issue to federal court is their only recourse.

“They have the right to organize, but there’s nothing that forces an employer to sit down and negotiate with the workers,” said Guadalupe Gamboa, Washington director for the United Farmworkers.

The farmworker union has been trying to organize fruit-picking workers in Eastern Washington since 1996.

The company said the suit “appears to be a publicity ploy to push the Union’s legislative agenda at the expense of Auvil and its employees.”

The workers have a case, the union said, and it was just a question of finding a means of getting it to court.

“The hardest thing is to find a lawyer that would help us do it,” Gamboa said. “We don’t have any money to pay them.”

The Seattle-based firm of Davies, Roberts, & Reid will represent the workers on a pro bono basis.

, DataTimes