Above photo: Ostrom Mushroom Farms workers march in Sunnyside on September 17, 2023 to for company to demand recognize union efforts and negotiate a contract. United Farm Workers, 2023.
The United Farm Workers union is calling for a boycott of mushrooms from the Windmill Farms plant in Sunnyside, Yakima County, its first boycott in nearly 20 years.
Workers are seeking the community’s support in their efforts to form a union, said Gabriela López, a member of the workers’ committee, during a gathering Wednesday night.
Officials with Windmill Farms did not comment on the boycott.
The union’s last boycott was E. & J. Gallo Winery in California in 2005, UFW organizer Roman Pinal said.
The union called on consumers to look out for mushrooms produced in Sunnyside and sold in Washington, Oregon and Alaska — some mushrooms will be labeled as Windmill Farms products while others may be generic. Any mushroom labeled as from Sunnyside is produced at Windmill Farms, since it is the only mushroom plant in the area, the UFW said.
Pinal said Monterey Mushrooms are an alternative to look for in stores — those are produced by unionized workers.
“We encourage consumers to vote with their dollars,” he said.
Pinal said the end goal is a union contract.
“Once there is a union contract, we believe peace and tranquility will be the result,” he said. “We will lift the boycott once we have a union contract.”
Farmworkers’ unions do not have to be recognized in much of the United States — an exclusion from worker protection laws that dates back to the Jim Crow era.
Boycotts were key to establishing the only farmworker unions in Washington — Familias Unidas por la Justicia in the Skagit Valley and UFW-represented workers at Chateau Ste. Michelle winery.
A boycott is not an instant solution, and recognizing a union is entirely up to the employer.
It took Chateau Ste. Michelle winery workers eight years to be recognized by their employer, they said in Sunnyside Wednesday at a gathering of community members and workers, but the result is better working conditions.
How did we get here?
Workers have been raising concerns about conditions at the mushroom farm on Midvale Road in Sunnyside for more than two years. They began rallying publicly in 2022 when workers and community members gathered to deliver a petition for fair pay and safe working conditions.
At that point, the facility was owned by Ostrom. Workers, worried about excessive pressure and stress in the workplace, said picking quotas were too high and unfair.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued Ostrom for discrimination against female and domestic workers and retaliation against workers who asserted their rights. Ostrom denied the allegations but agreed to pay workers $3.4 million in a settlement.
Canadian-based Windmill Farms bought the facility in February 2023. Workers argue that conditions are still bad because of unfair discipline and firing policies and shrinking benefits.
UFW sued Windmill Farms in 2023 for retaliating against workers who were trying to organize.
On Wednesday, several workers shared their experiences at Windmill Farms. Maria Lopez said the amount of money Windmill was paying for medical care in its benefits policy was shrinking year to year.
Mariella Estrada said she was fired on Nov. 13 without reason. Her employers provided no explanation or letter for her termination, she said in Spanish, even though she was consistently picking between 50 and 80 pounds of mushrooms per day.
“When you have a union contract, you can only be fired for just cause,” Pinal said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re fighting.”
What does a union contract mean?
On Wednesday, unionized workers from Chateau Ste. Michelle made the trip to Sunnyside to show solidarity and sign their new, three-year union contract with the winery.
One of those workers, Juan Marcial, had been at the UFW convention.
“Estan presente en su lucha,” he said. “They are here for your fight.”
Jesus Lopez has been at Chateau Ste. Michelle for more than three decades and was there when workers first began the struggle to unionize.
He said the biggest benefit to the union contract was job security and a lack of discrimination. The company cannot fire workers unjustly, he said.
Jesus Lopez said there is more trust between employers and employees.
“We have a closer relationship with the company. There is more confidence between the administration and us,” he said in Spanish.