Top U.S. rabbi presents check in Oxnard to promote Pictsweet mushroom boycott

News from the Farm Worker Movement(www.ufw.org):

2 p.m. Friday at UFW's Oxnard office

Top U.S. rabbi presents check in Oxnard, uses D.C.

connections to promote Pictsweet mushroom boycott

Rabbi Richard Levy, past-president of the 1,700-member Central

Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), uses a Friday afternoon visit to

the United Farm Workers' Oxnard office to present a ,100 check to the

union and detail important new support from CCAR rabbis for the UFW's

boycott of Pictsweet Mushroom Farms products.

Levy will announce that he and other leaders from CCAR plan to try

and arrange meetings between Pictsweet workers and top congressional

leaders, including U.S. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), new chairman of the

Senate Armed Services Committee. Pictsweet has more than million per

year in contracts to sell its products to military bases throughout the

U.S.

The Los Angeles-based Levy recently toured a Northern California

facility operated by Monterey Mushroom, which has union contracts with

the UFW. There he met with Pictsweet workers from Ventura who contrasted

pay, conditions and treatment at their non-union plant with the

unionized company.

Rabbi Levy also met with fired Pictsweet worker Fidel Andrade. On

July 5, the UFW filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state

Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) alleging Andrade was

unlawfully fired on May 31 after being "set up" by the company. On May

27, Andrade was cornered alone in a room with a foreman who deliberately

shook his finger in the face of the UFW activist. Andrade pushed the

finger aside, which Pictsweet says was a violation of its "zero

tolerance" policy against threats and violence.

On June 26, the ALRB issued a detailed nine-count complaint

accusing Pictsweet of systematically violating a host of state labor

laws in its bid to avoid negotiating a union contract with the UFW.

Who: Rabbi Richard Levy, past-president of the Central Conference of

American Rabbis and Pictsweet workers.

What: Presenting a ,100 check and announcing efforts to expand the

boycott of Pictsweet mushrooms.

When: 2 p.m. on Friday, July 13, 2001.

Where: UFW's Oxnard office, 920 So. "A" St., Oxnard.

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