Snokist Growers strike approaches fourth month
YAKIMA — In recent years, Snokist Growers Inc., one of the state’s largest agricultural cooperatives, has battled near-bankruptcy and growing international competition.
Owned by about 390 farmers, the cooperative delivers about 150,000 tons of apples, pears, cherries and plums each year to major fresh-pack and storage warehouses as well as its own Yakima cannery.
Trouble has been brewing most recently at the cannery, where a strike will be four months old this week. The cannery completed its seasonal run of Bartlett pears nearly two weeks ago, leaving little reason for management of the 101-year-old cooperative to negotiate with workers right away.
Snokist chief executive Valerie Woerner took over in March 2001 with the co-op on the verge of bankruptcy. There was talk of liquidating the cooperative, which would have caused the grower-owners to lose at least some of their equity and be forced to find a new home for their fruit.
Other fruit cooperatives also faced financial disaster. Tri Valley Growers, a major California canned-fruit competitor, went bankrupt in 2000. Two small Washington tree-fruit cooperatives closed in 2001.
To stay competitive, Woerner made changes including cost cuts that spurred the strike. In summer 2002, Snokist outsourced employment of 250 seasonal cannery workers hired for cherry and pear processing.
The workers, who had been paid between $8.45 and $10.85 an hour as Snokist employees, had to reapply for their jobs through Skills Resource Training Center and took minimum wage, which then was $6.90 an hour.
The other cannery workers, who hadn’t received a pay increase since 1998, feared their jobs were next to be outsourced. Woerner said the cooperative had no such plans.
Nevertheless, the cannery employees voted to join the Western Council of Industrial Workers. And when negotiations for a first contract soured this summer, they voted to strike.
About 250 workers walked off the job Sept. 23 as pear processing, the cannery’s largest and most lucrative business, was nearing its peak.
The strike injured but hardly crippled Snokist. With two shifts instead of the normal three, pear canning finished a month later than normal, on Dec. 8.