The 1936 Salinas Lettuce Strike, a strike involving lettuce shed workers, erupted after negotiations for a new agreement between the Fruit and Vegetable Workers Union No. 18211 (F&VWU) and the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California (GSVA) collapsed on September 1, 1936. The central issues were the union's demand for preferential hiring for union members and recognition of the Union as the representative of lettuce shed workers (trimmers and packers) in the Salinas-Watsonville District.
The union's demand for preferential hiring for union members arose from employer blacklisting of lettuce shed workers who had struck during the 1935 Imperial Valley Lettuce Strike over their demands for pay and working conditions in line with terms agreed to during the Industrial Relations Board's (IRB) settlement of a labor dispute in Salinas in October 1934.
Salinas Industrial Relations Board (1934)
During its March 5, 1934 meeting, the Monterey County, California Board of Supervisors, with the support of growers and shippers, adopted an anti-picketing ordinance to head off a labor strike in Salinas. The threatened strike was characterized as being heavily influenced by Communists that would likely turn violent and endanger the public if not kept off the streets of Salinas.[1][2][3]
The VPA, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), was not a communist-led union. In fact, the AFL was ardently anti-communist, so the Central Labor Council of Monterey County packed the Board of Supervisors April 2, 1934 meeting to demand that the ordinance be rescinded.
Members of various areas unions and citizens delivered impassioned pleas for the Board to rescind the ordinance, asserting that it was an infringement of their right to free speech and assembly. There were also warnings that the ordinance would amount to an open invitation to radicals to flood into the area and infiltrate any strikes that might occur.
Having heard the arguments for and against the ordinance, the Board decided to form an Industrial Relations Board (IRB) to mediate disputes between labor and employers and agreed to rescind the ordinance once delegates to the IRB were named.[4] Representing the employers on the IRB were: Bruce Church, Ellis Spiegl, and Maurice Brenner. Representing organized labor on the IRB were: Alfred S. Doss, J. E. Jones, and Argyll Campbell.[5]
The IRB produced its binding agreement on October 8, 1934, which included several provisions for improvements in pay and working conditions. The IRB agreement effectively ended threatened strikes over pay and working conditions, established a mechanism for settling future labor disputes, and eliminated the need for the anti-picketing ordinance.[6][7]
1935 Imperial Valley Lettuce Strike
During the 1935 lettuce harvest season, the VPA boasted some 1,200 members among the valley’s lettuce lettuce shed workers. Despite its assertion that it represented a majority of the workers, the growers and shippers, whose bargaining interests were in the hands of the Western Growers Protective Association (WGPA) refused to recognize the union or bargain over its terms, claiming that they were Communist and radical-led.[8][9] Union secretary C. B. Lawrence represented the Union in the effort to improve pay and working conditions there.[10] WGPA secretary Chester B. Moore spoke for the lettuce growers and shippers.[11]
Union members voted to strike on February 12, 1935, then just five days later, with a federal conciliator on site to help mediate the dispute, deputized civilians opened fire on pickets at the lettuce shed barricade, killing two strikers, Kenneth Hamaker and Paul Knight.[12] Some 500 rounds were fired from the barricade before the shooting ended a few minutes later.[13]
Imperial Valley Strikebreakers in Salinas
Lettuce workers tended to follow the crop, meaning that when the season ended in one location, they would travel to work a crop that was in season. The lettuce growing season in Salinas was eight months long, so lettuce workers tended to settle in Salinas and migrate for temporary work in places like the Salt River Valley near Phoenix and the Imperial Valley near El Centro.
When the violence during the 1935 Imperial Valley Lettuce Strike ended the season there for striking workers, many returned to the Salinas Valley for the season that would begin in late April. But along with the Imperial Valley strikers came Imperial Valley strikebreakers, whom the strikers considered complicit in the murder of Hamaker and Knight. The workers—union and non-union alike—resented the idea of working shoulder-to-shoulder with the strikebreakers, particularly since Imperial Valley strikers who had worked past seasons in Salinas found themselves suddenly displaced from their jobs by the strikebreakers. The workers considered that retaliation for their Union activity, which they considered protected activity.
However, employers believed that shed workers were “agricultural workers,” which were not included in federal worker protections. That meant that striking, particularly striking where violence was involved, was a disciplinary matter that fell within their discretion as employers.
When the practice continued in the spring of 1936, protests grew, centering primarily on the Ice-Kist and J. A. Simmons lettuce packing sheds in Salinas. On May 4, 1936, workers at the Simmons shed warned that they would strike the next day unless management agreed to a list of demands. At the top of their list of demands was the dismissal of four men they called “gun-toters” and “Imperial Valley scabs,” whom they accused of serving as strikebreakers during the Imperial Valley strikes in 1934 and 1935. They also objected to the company’s method of calculating work hours, arguing that it violated their 1935 contract. They alleged that Simmons was splitting shifts, working them for a number of hours, breaking for a period, then continuing their workday, exceeding the eight hour workday and the requirement for an eight hour break between workdays.[14]
The following morning, Union financial secretary A. S. Doss arrived at the Simmons shed to deliver the workers’ demands in person. When Simmons rejected them, the crew immediately walked off the job and began picketing the premises. With 30 trailers of lettuce awaiting packing, Simmons tried to avoid losses by sending the produce to other sheds. Some of it was sent to the Ice-Kist Packing Company, but the Simmons pickets followed. Doss then instructed the Ice-Kist workers to refuse to handle the lettuce. Of the 75 to 80 employees there, all but 16 to 18 joined the walkout. The lettuce was sent back to the Simmons shed. Efforts to have it packed elsewhere failed. Both sheds stayed shut for eight days.[15]
Eventually, Simmons relented and fired six Imperial Valley strikebreakers. However, Art Sbrana owner of the Ice-Kist shed, refused the workers' demand that he terminate six Imperial Valley strikebreakers and place another eleven on the first-to-be-laid-off list.[16]
Finally, the GSVA proposed that the two sides air their positions at a public forum at the high school auditorium on May 14, 1936, thinking that public support for them would force the Union to capitulate. The Union agreed to appear at the forum. After addresses by Union president Mickey Shevlin and secretary Doss, the shippers agreed to mediate the issue. Shevlin and Doss had been persuasive in describing to the public their frustration in getting GSVA to settle differences through the grievance process over the course of the previous year and suggesting that the reason the shippers were stalling resolution of the strikebreaker dispute was so they could delay the harvest and drive up the market price of lettuce at the growers’ expense. Within days of the forum, Ice-Kist agreed to the Union’s demands.[17]
Formation of the Citizens' Association and the Associated Farmers of Monterey County
The Simmons/Ice-Kist affair showed the GSVA that public support in controversies with the union was essential. On May 28, 1936, the group decided to hire a public relations expert, Cruse Carriel, to handle its media communications. He was referred to the GSVA by the advertising firm, Lord & Thomas. At about the same time that Carriel arrived on the scene, a new organization--the Citizens' Association--was formed in close coordination with the GSVA. Several members of the GSVA were heavily involved in the formation of the Citizens' Association, which initially met in the GSVA offices. GSVA secretary Charles S. Brooks played a significant role in the Citizen's Association's organization. According to Brooks, the purpose of the Citizens' Association was "to have an organization that could act as a mouthpiece for the sentiment of the town people," because "many outfits were having labor trouble at that time."[18]
In reality, the Citizens' Association was created to serve as a mouthpiece for the GSVA. In fact, the GSVA became a member of the Citizens' Association and took out individual membership on behalf of its members. Then, within two weeks of being hired by the GSVA, Cruse Carriel was hired to serve as executive director of the Citizens' Association. The GSVA did not fill the public relations vacancy after Carriel departed. When the union later threatened to strike, the GSVA and the Citizens' Association collaborated on a unified anti-strike public relations campaign.[19]
The GSVA also hired shipper Henry Strobel to "cement the membership" of the GSVA and tighten relations between the growers and the shippers. Strobel had been the founding president of the GSVA. The following day, Strobel assisted in organizing--and became president--of the Monterey County chapter of the Associated Farmers.[20]
The Associated Farmers, according to its president at the time, Colonel Walter E. Garrison, was created to help farmers organize to protect themselves against field workers organizing. Under his leadership, the Associated Farmers sought to create legislation to limit public relief provided to strikers. He asked members to send him pictures of labor leaders and "radicals" and that he would "see they were handled." He said that the organization had an effective system of undercover agents working in the union and that they had been successful in helping defeat strikes elsewhere in California. At an Associated Farmers membership meeting at which Monterey County sheriff Carl H. Abbott was a guest, Strobel offered the services of members to serve as deputies in the event of a labor disturbance.[21]
Red Scare Tactics
Allegations that organized labor strikes were communist-led or inspired were common in the 1930s, some of them justified. The infamous 1933 Cotton Strike in the San Joaquin Valley, led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU), was an example.[22] Strikes led by American Federation of Labor-affiliated unions like the Vegetable Packers Association in the 1935 Imperial Valley Lettuce Strike and the Fruit & Vegetable Workers Union in the 1936 Salinas Lettuce Strike were not.[23] Claims by their adversaries that they were communist-led were part of the campaign to build a case for preemptive government action—law enforcement reinforcements, deputized citizens, munitions, anti-picketing ordinances—and to win public support for anti-strike forces.[24]
While the GSVA, the Citizens’ Association, and Colonel Sanborn persisted in claims about a Communist threat, the Communists waged their own campaign against Union leaders. Finally, the Western Worker, a Marxist newspaper, warned strikers to “Beware of the sell-out.” It was an attempt to undermine Union leadership by trying to convince strikers that the Union would make a backroom deal at their expense. When it became apparent to Union leaders that Communists were in the Salinas area and had infiltrated the ranks of the strikers, Shevlin and Doss each led twenty-man groups to raid Communist strongholds in Salinas, pull their propaganda out into the street, and set it on fire.
The raid encouraged the Communists to run candidates for office against Shevlin and Doss. However, once votes were tallied, Shevlin and Doss were reelected by a two-to-one margin.
Role of Lieutenant Colonel Henry R. Sanborn
Lieutenant Colonel Henry R. Sanborn, a reserve U.S. Army officer, arrived in Salinas to serve as coordinator of law enforcement by the Citizens’ Association, although not in an official military capacity. He was the publisher of a paper whose focus was on fighting radical and subversive elements, and he had been involved in strikebreaking in other locations, including the warehouse strike at the C&H Sugar Company in Crockett, near San Francisco. While in Salinas, he worked under the assumed name, Henry Winter.
He arrived in Salinas on September 13, 1936 and quickly went to work establishing a command post on the sixth floor of the Jeffery Hotel on Main Street. He quickly assembled a general staff of mostly local people to handle logistics, intelligence, and administration. The sheriff, chief of police, highway patrol, and public officials all maintained office in the Jeffery Hotel with him and his staff. From the Jeffrey Hotel, he issued regular reports of communist activity to the press and to California Governor Frank Merriam himself. The reports included information that indicated that Communists were pouring into Salinas by the truckload, that some 3,000 longshoremen from San Francisco were en route to Salinas “to mop up the town,” and that red flags had been placed throughout the strike area to indicate marshaling areas and the dates that communists would use them. None of those reports were true. In fact the red flags were real, but they had been placed along roadways by the state highway department to aid in counting traffic.[25][26]
Sanborn bore a good bit of responsibility for the dozen or so communists who eventually made their way to Salinas. There might have been more had Union leaders not told them to stay out of town.[27]
Strike Negotiations
The dispute over the Imperial Valley strikebreakers was resolved, but union concerns remained as to the workers' protection against discrimination for union activity.
The union maintained that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) shielded workers from discrimination. However, the GSVA maintained that act did not apply to agricultural workers. They considered lettuce shed workers to be agricultural workers while the union considered them to be industrial workers.[28][29]
Numerous efforts to craft language in the preferential hiring clause that would satisfy GSVA concerns all failed. The GSVA held to its position that any provision that included the words "preferential hiring" or "preferential employment" for union members was unacceptable.[30][31][32]
The disputed provision stipulated that "when obtainable" union members would be hired first. The shippers equated the provision with a "closed shop," which refers to a union-only shop. Its position was that if the provision wasn't a closed shop, it was the next thing to it.
The union held that since the GSVA continued to insist that shed workers weren't protected by the NLRA, its protections would--and had--been disregarded by the GSVA. Even if the GSVA acknowledged its applicability to shed workers, resolution of complaints by the National Labor Relations Board would be ineffective since findings and corrective actions would not be finalized for years.
July 27, 1936 - The GSVA sent a letter to the Union saying that they were ready to begin negotiations for a new contract the replace the one that was due to expire on September 1.[33]
August 6, 1936 - The first negotiations meeting was held. The Union offered its proposal: Paragraph 7 - Provided for recognition of the Union as the collective bargaining again for all workers employed in the fruit and vegetable industry. Paragraph 37 - Provided that "when obtainable all workers employed in and around packing sheds must be members in good standing of the Fruit and Vegetable Workers' Union."[34]
August 11, 1936 - Seventy-two firms, including some that weren't members signed a binding power of attorney authorizing the GSVA to represent them in negotiations with the Union.[35]
August 12, 1936 - The GSVA and the Union agreed that any reports to the press would be issued in writing and approved by both parties. The GSVA also reported that its membership had rejected, "on account of it being too long," the Union's proposal. The GSVA proposed that the Union work with the GSVA to revise the existing contract rather than create a new one. The Union refused, saying that its members had authorized them to bargain over an entirely new agreement only. The Union asked the GSVA to work on its own proposal.[36]
August 18, 1936 - The GSVA presented its proposal, which was, to a large extent, the same as the existing agreement, except that the paragraphs were rearranged. It included no terms for recognition of the Union, preferential hiring, or wage increases.[37]
August 19, 1936 - Despite agreeing not to issue releases to the press without mutual agreement, the GSVA published the texts of both parties' proposed contracts to the press.[38]
August 25, 1936 - The Union reported to the GSVA that its members voted to reject the GSVA's proposal and had directed Union negotiators to negotiate relative to the proposal it submitted on August 6 only. Union members emphasized its demand for a preferential hiring clause and equal pay for men and women.[39]
August 26, 1936 - When negotiations resumed the following day, the bulk of the discussion related to the demand for a preferential hiring clause. The GSVA repeated that the preferential hiring clause was not acceptable to its membership. Since no date was set for additional meetings, it started to look like no agreement would be reached by the September 1 deadline. The Union announced to the GSVA that if a new agreement was not reached before the deadline, its members would continue to work without a contract.[40]
August 27, 1936 - The GSVA general membership met and decided to have secretary Charles Brooks prepare a notice to be placed on shed bulletin boards stating that the contract terms proposed by the GSVA on August 18 would be the applicable to any workers who worked beginning on September 4, and would remain in effect until September 1, 1937.[41]
August 28, 1936 - The GSVA posted a full-page advertisement in the Salinas Index-Journal:
"WORKERS: THINK!
Read this Ad-Study the Agreement
Did You Have a Chance to VOTE ON IT?"
The body of the advertisement included the text:
"...representatives of the Union reported to our group that they would not even discuss our proposal. They ended negotiations, saying that full discussion of their own proposal would be futile, unless the Grower-Shippers first agreed to paragraph No. 37..."
The most significant section of the advertisement, however, read:
"You who make up the sane, conservative, straight-thinking group, for your own sakes, do this:
SET UP YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP AND COMMITTEES. DEMAND THAT YOUR ORGANIZATION FOLLOW THE DICTATES OF THE MAJORITY. REFUSE TO BE DOMINATED BY A RADICAL MINORITY, WHOSE "ORDERS" CERTAINLY DON'T COME FROM YOU. DEMAND THAT YOU BE GIVEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO CONSIDER ALL IMPORTANT PROBLEMS. AND MOST IMPORTANT, DEMAND THAT YOU BE GIVEN THE AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY OF THE SECRET BALLOT WHEN PASSING ON SUCH PROBLEMS.
LET'S NOT ALLOW THESE SHEDS TO SHUT DOWN WITH CONSEQUENT UNEMPLOYMENT, BITTERNESS , AND INESTIMABLE FINANCIAL LOSS TO WORKERS, EMPLOYERS, AND THE SALINAS-WATSONVILLE DISTRICT.
August 31, 1936 - The Union contacted the GSVA and arranged for another bargaining meeting to be held the following day.[43]September 1, 1936 - The GSVA published an advertisement in the Salinas Morning Post and the Salinas Index-Journal titled, "Notice to Workers in The Lettuce Industry." The notice was a reproduction of the notice that the GSVA intended to post in lettuce packing sheds, adopted at its August 27 meeting.
Whereas the Fruit and Vegetable Workers Union, No. 18211, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, has failed to negotiate or ratify an agreement for the ensuing year covering wage scale and working conditions:
Beginning September 1st, 1936, the following wage scale and working conditions will prevail. Any work performed on September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, shall not obligate the worker to continue to work under such wage scale and working conditions.
HOWEVER, ANY WORK PERFORMED UNDER SAID WORKING CONDITIONS AND/OR WAGES ACCEPTED FOR WORK PERFORMED ON OR AFTER SEPTEMBER 4, 1936, SHALL BE CONSTRUED BY BOTH THE WORKER AND THE UNDERSIGNED AS THE ACCEPTANCE OF SAID WORKING CONDITIONS AND WAGE SCALE FOR THE PERIOD COMMENCING SEPTEMBER 4TH, 1936, AND ENDING AUGUST 31ST, 1937, AND SHALL BE BINDING ON THE SAID WORKER AND THE UNDERSIGNED FOR SAID PERIOD.
Should the undersigned and the Fruit and Vegetable Workers' Union, Number 18211, enter into an agreement pertaining to the matters contained herein, this agreement shall thereafter. become ineffective.
The notice was posted in many of the packing sheds the same day.[44]
The two parties met again on the evening of September 1 from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am on September 2. During the meeting, the Union offered a new draft of its proposed agreement. It was, for the most part, a rearrangement of its first proposal. The number of items was reduced from 52 to 36. The Union recognition clause was moved up to paragraph 1, and the preferential employment clause was moved up to paragraph 2. Most of the discussion was spent on the new paragraph 2. Finally, both parties agreed to submit the revised language to their membership.[45]
September 2, 1936 - The two sides met again on the evening of September 2. The GSVA representatives reported that its general membership had rejected the revised preferential hiring clause. The GSVA offered another proposal, which was based on the existing agreement with the addition of some of the Union's demands. However, it not only did not provide for Union recognition, it limited the Union's representation to its members only, not all workers. The GSVA suggested that its proposal be printed and distributed to workers. The Union objected the GSVA distributing them. However, the Union agreed to distribute copies itself at a meeting of its membership the following day. The GSVA agreed not to distribute the documents and agreed with Union secretary Alfred Doss that they would not "ballyhoo" the agreement to the employees. The meeting ended without a plan for further meetings.[46]
September 3, 1936 - Late in the afternoon, 2,500 printed copies of the Association's most recent proposal were delivered to Union secretary Alfred Doss at the Union office by a messenger. Doss rejected the delivery because he claimed that the GSVA had broken its agreement not to distribute copies or "ballyhoo" the proposal to shed workers. That evening, the Salinas local and the Watsonville sublocal met to consider the GSVA's posted notices and its most recent proposal. Members rejected the GSVA's proposal, primarily on the grounds that it failed to include recognition of the Union as representatives of all shed workers. The Union and its members considered the notices an ultimatum. By an overwhelming vote in both locations, members decided not to work, beginning the following day, September 4, because doing so would constitute entering individual agreements with the GSVA.[47]
September 4, 1936 - At midnight, Union secretary Alfred Doss notified the GSVA of the Union members' decision and announced that the Union was on strike.[48]
Once the strike began, there were several efforts made to reach an agreement between the Union and the GSVA. The first attempt was September 11 when representatives of the Union, the American Federation of Labor, and the GSVA discussed the preferential hiring clause further. The GSVA held to its position that it would never accept that provision. As the meeting ended GSVA president Art Sbrana said, "All propositions are off with reference to collective bargaining." This statement appears, however, to have been made in the heat of temper. When the Union informed the GSVA that its members had again voted not to withdraw its demand for preferential hiring, the GSVA changed its tune and responded, "we wish to repeat our statements in former communications that we are still willing to negotiate on an agreement."[49]
Subsequent negotiations were carried on, however, through third parties. Of these the only negotiations which need be mentioned for the purposes of this case are those which were conducted between Vandeleur, secretary of the State Federation of Labor, and representatives of the Citizens' Association. At meetings shortly before October 21 these parties reached a tentative agreement which was to be submitted to the Grower-Shipper Association and the Union.[50]
The Strike
When the strike began on September 4, 1936, the shippers shut down all lettuce packing sheds and remained closed until September 15.[51]
September 5 or 6, 1936 - Law enforcement officers met with GSVA representatives to discuss security for the resumption of packing operations. Salinas Police Chief George Griffin proposed that a stockade be built around the packing sheds. He also recommended that a single person be appointed to coordinate the law enforcement efforts of the various law enforcement agencies, which included the Salinas Police Department, the Monterey Sheriff's Department, and the California Highway Patrol.[52]
September 13, 1936 - Colonel Henry R. Sanborn, a reserve U.S. Army officer not acting in that capacity, arrived in Salinas to serve as coordinator of law enforcement. He was the publisher of a paper centered on fighting "radical" and "subversive" elements. While in Salinas, he worked under the assumed name, Henry Winter. His strategy for shed security was that forces gathered at the barricade not use force until the strikers became violent.[53]
September 14, 1936 - The stockade around the lettuce packing sheds was completed in time for the planned resumption of operations using strikebreakers the following day.[54]
September 15, 1936 - When the first lettuce trucks arrived at the sheds from the fields with loads of lettuce, they did so without guards. The police, however, waited behind the barricade. A crowd of approximately 2,000 strikers, sympathizers, and onlookers gathered at the barricade gate. As the trucks appeared at the gate, rocks were thrown at one or two of the trucks. Chief Griffin warned the crowd to disperse. Then, after waiting about ten minutes, he ordered a gas attack. Ten officers, four of whom were carrying riot gas guns while the others carried gas grenades, emerged from behind the barricade to clear the crowd from the picket line.[55]
September 16, 1936 - Early in the morning, groups of pickets walked east on East Gabilan toward the barricade. The first group consisted of approximately 50 picketers. No trucks had yet approached the barricade and no violence or threat of violence came from the picketers. Police were at their posts at the barricade gate. A motion picture crew was positioned at the gate with their equipment as well, apparently anticipating action shots.[57]
Then, without warning when the picketers closed to within approximately 75 feet, the officers suddenly opened fire with gas guns. The gas forced the crowd back toward Main Street, five blocks west of the barricade. With picketers regrouping on Main Street, a convoy of lettuce trucks appeared on Main Street rather than along the usual truck route. At the intersection of Gabilan and Main Streets, a beet truck in front of the convoy stopped at a traffic light.[58] When the convoy stopped behind it, picketers ran out into the street and cut the ropes holding field crates off the trucks and onto the street, smearing lettuce along the street.[59]
Then, a group of about fifty deputized citizens wearing pale blue armbands came running up East Gabilan Street toward Main Street in military-style formation, armed with clubs, axe handles, and shotguns. At the head of the group, and carrying club in his right hand and a pistol holstered on his left hip was Henry Strobel. Strobel’s platoon held its formation as it reached Main Street near where the lettuce had been dumped from the trucks. The strikers in the street and along the sidewalks on Main Street leered at them as Strobel’s group closed in. Then, a deputy fired his gun in the air to disperse the strikers, but instead of retreating, the strikers began moving toward the approaching platoon until the two groups broke ranks and charged into each other, Strobel’s group swinging their clubs and axe handles freely as the strikers shielded their heads and waded into them kicking and flailing with punches. The melee quickly broke into a full lather hand-to-hand battle between the two groups. Clubs, rocks, and fists flew freely. Combatants on both sides were knocked to the ground. Most were able to get back up and resume the battle. Some had to make their way or be helped off the street to safety.[60][61]
Law enforcement responded with another series of gas attacks. Gas bombing resumed all along Gabilan from the barricade to Main Street. Groups of as few as two or three were attacked without provocation from them. At one point, strikers were chased on side streets along Gabilan from both directions. One attack occurred on Pajaro Street where Union offices were situated. When strikers sought refuge in the Labor Temple, gas bombs were hurled inside. The gassing continued throughout the day.[62][63]
After the attacks on the 16th, the Union ordered its members off the picket line. In ordering pickets off the streets, Union secretary Alfred Doss warned that the streets of Salinas were about to become "an all-out murder trap."[64]
September 17, 1936 - Monterey County Sheriff and Mayor Edmund Leach issued proclamations calling for all able-bodied citizens between the ages of 18 and 45 to report for duty as citizen deputies. When they reported, they were issued clubs and the distinctive blue armbands of the citizen militia that had already been assembled.[65]
November 3, 1936 - After sixty-one days, the strike finally drew to an end without resolution. However, the Union took up the fight in a different venue when it filed charges against the GSVA and certain shippers with the National Labor Relations Board.
National Labor Relations Board Findings
On October 13, 1936, Union secretary Alfred S. Doss, acting on the Union's behalf, filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board. On January 8, 1937, the Union filed additional charges.[66]
On April 12, 1937, Judge Charles N. Feidelson, regional NLRB director in Birmingham, Alabama, convene the hearing to consider the complaints. The hearing last for six intense weeks until May 18, 1937.[67]
One of the first items of business was Judge Feidelson's ruling on the GSVA's motion to dismiss the charges on the basis that lettuce shed workers were not covered under the National Labor Relations Act. The GSVA had contended all along that lettuce shed workers did not have protection under the Act because they considered the workers "agricultural workers." In fact, they had made that contention throughout the bargaining process, which provided them the basis for rejecting workers' fundamental rights to representation by the Union of their choosing, recognition of the Union, and worker protection against discrimination and blacklisting, the latter of which motivated the Union to seek the preferential hiring clause in the first place. Judge Feidelson ruled that shed workers were covered under the Act.[68]
The hearing featured dramatic appearances and heated exchanges. Colonel Sanborn made a conspicuous entrance. Alfred Doss gave detailed testimony. NLRB counsel Edises sparred with GSVA secretary Charles S. Brooks. Salinas Police Chief George Griffin gave unsettling testimony about law enforcement conduct during the strike. Union attorney Richard Gladstein directly accused California Federation of Labor secretary Edwin Vickers of betraying the local union and its members. And others weaved a story about the events leading to, during, and after the strike that shook Salinas.[69]
On Tuesday, May 17, 1937, the hearings finally concluded. The transcripts, evidence, and Judge Feidelson’s report were sent to NLRB headquarters in Washington, D.C. Later, once Judge Feidelson made his report on the proceedings and his findings, a final judgment would be made on the case and orders would be issued.[70]
The NLRB wouldn’t issue its decision on the Union’s complaint for another two years on September 15, 1939, but before the decision and its enforcement provisions could be carried out, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals would need to rule on the petition to enforce the NLRB’s order. The final order was ultimately issued on July 21, 1941, four-and-a-half years after the strike ended.[71]
The NLRB conclusions and order were modified slightly in response to the NLRB’s petition to have the order enforced. The hearing to enforce the order was presided over by Judges Francis Arthur Garrecht, Bert E. Haney, and William Healy in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.[72]
The NLRB found and the appeals court concurred that the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association and certain of its affiliated firms interfered with, restrained, and coerced the employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed to them under the National Labor Relations Act, discriminated against some employees who were on strike by virtue of having been subjected to unfair labor practices by refusing to reinstate their employment once the strike was finished, and refused to bargain and bargain in good faith with the Union as the representative of all employees in violation of the Act.[73],[74]
The NLRB also determined that the actions of law enforcement and its agents, were “one of inexcusable police brutality, in many instances bordering upon sadism.” Furthermore, the court decided that “the activities of the police in town…do not inspire one with a sense of respect. Innumerable false arrests were made, many without a shadow of evidence. Large numbers of persons were kept in jail for 4 or 5 days without having any charges brought against them.” Nonetheless, the court could not assign responsibility for those actions to the GSVA or its member firms. The court noted that Colonel Sanborn appeared at the bidding of the attorney for the Citizens’ Association, Edgar Thorne, and that Hoyt Sanders, although he was an employee of the GSVA and was active in recruiting citizen deputies, didn’t violate the Act in doing so. The NLRB found that Sanders’ involvement in the violence on September 16 was due to him being ordered to the scene by Sheriff Abbott.[75]
With respect to the suppliers’ boycott of Tracy-Waldron Fruit Company when A. M. Tracy attempted to strike an agreement with the Union, the NLRB found that the GSVA and its members interfered with, restrained, and coerced the employees, not only of the Tracy-Waldron Fruit Company, but also all of the members of the GSVA in the exercise of their rights guaranteed under the Act.[76]
The NLRB also found that the GSVA and its members committed espionage against the Union and its workers and, in doing so, interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed under the Act.[77]
Finally, the NLRB found that these “activities, having a close, intimate, and substantial relation to trade, traffic, and commerce among the several States,” tended to lead and had led to labor disputes that burdened and obstructed commerce and the free flow of commerce.[78]
The NLRB issued and the Ninth Circuit Court sustained orders for the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association and certain of its member firms to:
Cease and desist from maintaining surveillance of or employing any manner of espionage to investigate the activities of the Union, or the activities of their employees or of any employees of members of the Association in connection with the Union or any other labor organization.
Cease and desist from interfering with, restraining, or coercing their employees and the employees of members of the Association in the exercise of the right to self-organization, to form labor organizations, to join or assist the Union, or any other labor organization, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, as guaranteed in the National Labor Relations Act.
Immediately offer full reinstatement or employment in their former or equivalent positions to be made to employees identified by the Circuit Court as having been blacklisted.
Reinstate employees and make whole for any loss of pay they have suffered because of the discrimination related to their hiring or tenure of employment by paying them a sum of money equal to that which each would normally have earned as wages during the period from the discrimination to the date of the offer of reinstatement or employment.
Upon application, offer to the shed workers who were employed by it in the Salinas-Watsonville district on September 3, 1936, and who have not since been fully reinstated, full and immediate reinstatement, placing those employees for whom employment is not immediately available upon a preferential list and offer them employment as it becomes available.
Make whole all the shed workers who were employed in the Salinas-Watsonville district on September 3, 1936, and who are ordered to be offered reinstatement for any loss of pay they will have suffered by reason of the respondent’s refusal of reinstatement or placement on the preferential list.
Post notices immediately in conspicuous places in its packing sheds in the Salinas-Watsonville district stating that it will cease and desist as directed in the order and maintain those notices for sixty days from the date of posting.
Publish in a daily newspaper of general circulation in Salinas and Watsonville, California, at least once every two weeks for a period of eight weeks a notice stating that it will cease and desist as directed in the order.[79][80]
The court also sustained the order instructing each of the pertinent respondents to notify the Regional Director for the Twentieth Region in writing within ten days from the date of the order what steps they had taken to comply with it.[81]
Unfortunately, though, with the order not coming until nearly five years after the strike ended, the remedies were largely overcome by time.
By the time the committee issued its April 15, 1938 interim report halfway through its five-year investigation, it had already conducted 74 days of hearings, heard from 343 witnesses, and written 15 volumes of records and 3 reports, and had others in development. The records provided the basis for legislation passed in several states relative to civil liberties and the rights of labor.[83]
The committee found that with the adoption of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, employer associations, as in Salinas, had begun the practice of leveraging third parties, such as citizens’ committees, to perform anti-Union functions that they were not permitted to do themselves under the Act. These third-party entities performed espionage, published propaganda in the form of notices and bulletins, employed detectives, special deputies, and strikebreakers, purchased weapons such as tear gas, machine guns, and clubs, and generally dedicated themselves to various specialized strikebreaking activities in order to discourage unionism, weaken unions, inflame workers and activists, all justified in the name of protecting against radicalism, deterring sabotage, and maintaining peace. The use of these third parties provided the employer associations with a degree of separation from the illicit activities, even as the rosters and meeting minutes of these third-party groups revealed that individual officers and members of the employer associations were on the third-party groups’ rolls as well. In some cases, as in the 1936 Salinas lettuce strike, the employer associations themselves were members of the third-party groups, as if they were merely members, not a driving force behind the third-party group’s existence.[84]
The delay in the enforcement of the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling could be interpreted as delayed justice. However, it helped produce the protections that the Fruit and Vegetable Workers Union No. 18211 sought all along. The campaign to win those protections began with the adoption of the Industrial Relations Board agreement in 1934, then the 1935 Imperial Valley Strike during which two strikers were shot and killed and which resulted in a persistent conflict in Salinas over the discrimination against workers subjected to unfair labor practices, then finally, the 1936 Salinas Lettuce Strike. The determination of Congress to take note of what was happening on the California labor front, particularly, as in the case of the 1936 Salinas Lettuce Strike, in the tumultuous agricultural and agricultural-industrial arenas in California helped establish a consciousness about the fair treatment of workers.[85]
↑ In the Matter of Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California and the Fruit and Vegetable Workers’ Union of California, No. 18211, XV N.L.R.B., 336 (1939).
↑ U.S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor, Part 73: Supplemental Exhibits, 76th Cong., 3rd Sess., July 1, 1940, exhibit 13674, pp. 27004-27006.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
