> from July-August Industrial Worker (newspaper of the IWW)
>
> BOYCOTT
> May 22, Tampa, FL
>
> by Cris D'Angelo
>
> They rallied at noon beneath a sweltering Florida sun, but after
> thirty years working in the fields of North Carolina and Florida,the
> heat didn't deter Fernando Cuevas. Some things haven't changed much in
> the last thirty years.
>
> "Thirty years ago, when I was his age," he recalls, nodding toward his
> 14 year old son, "$1.25 a flat is what they (strawberry pickers) were
> paid, and $1.25 a flat is what they're paid now."
>
> Cuevas, now an organizer for the Toledo, Ohio based Farm Labor
> Organizing Committee (FLOC), came to Kash 'n' Karry supermarket on
> 56th Street and Busch Boulevard with his two sons and a dozen
> supporters, including four wobblies, to ask consumers to boycott Mt.
> Olive pickles.
>
> Mt. Olive, North Carolina's largest pickle producer, has refused to
> sit down and bargain a contract with FLOC, even though more than 2,000
> farmworkers have signed union authorization cards.
>
> Mt. Olive President Bill Bryan has maintained that FLOC has to
> negotiate with the growers, but Cuevas disagrees. He said Saturday:"I
> represent the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. I've been organizing in
> North Carolina, where we've signed up over 2,000 workers that want the
> representation of Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Those workers are
> wanting a contract with Mt. Olive, but Mt. Olive denies to even meet
> with FLOC or with the workers. They keep saying they want nothing to
> do with the workers; they're not the employer. In reality, Mt. Olive
> is the one that does all the decision making."
>
> Shortly after noon, the group split up and Cuevas' younger son and a
> Tampa wobbly took up places in front of Kash 'n' Karry doors, handing
> out flyers to shoppers, while Fernando and the others walked the
> picket line at the other end of the parking lot. A store manager came
> outside and told the two they would have to move away from the front
> of the store. He was asked if the sidewalk in front of the store was
> private property, and he answered that it was. The two leafleteers
> returned to the others on the picket line.
>
> Cuevas then asked to speak to the store manager. "I explained to him
> why we're here, what we're here to do," he said. "All we're here to do
> is, with your support and the support of the consumers, we are
> boycotting Mt. Olive."
>
> Cuevas said FLOC isn't boycotting Kash 'n' Karry now, or any other
> store, but that could change."If it comes to down the road, say six
> months...and a chain store like this don't start at least some kind of
> dialogue with us, with the union, of how we can start getting the
> product off the shelves, we might have to go into a secondary
> boycott." Farmworkers are excluded from NLRB rules, which means they
> have the right to do secondary boycotts.
>
> "Right now we're saying there's nothing wrong with the store, but
> there is a lot wrong with Mt. Olive products. Fill the shelves with
> Vlasic, with Heinz, with Green Bay...don't buy Mt. Olive. This is a
> non union pickle...it's a scab pickle."
>
> A woman shopper stopped by the picket line to say she's from North
> Carolina, where she grew up doing farm work. She knows how hard the
> work is, for wages workers can't even raise a family on. She said she
> told the store manager she supports the boycott.
>
> Another Kash 'n' Karry management type kept coming out of the store.
> "He was real excited," Cuevas recalled, with a smile. He told us to
> "leave, get out of here." Cuevas told him: "Thank you sir...but we're
> here."