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Boycott of Mt. Olive ends
For
immediate release 9/16/04
The Farm Labor
Organizing Committee (FLOC) and the North Carolina Growers
Association (NCGA) have reached a historic labor agreement, and
the boycott of Mt. Olive Pickle Company is over.
FLOC, an affiliate of
the AFL-CIO, is a labor union representing migrant farmworkers in
the Midwest. NCGA is an association of approximately 1,000 grower
members in North Carolina organized to recruit workers under the
federal H-2A guest worker program. Mt. Olive Pickle Company is a
North Carolina-based food processor that has been the target of a
boycott called by FLOC in its efforts to achieve collective
bargaining agreements with North Carolina farmers.
The collective
bargaining agreement signed by FLOC and NCGA covers an estimated
8,500 federal H-2A guest workers from Mexico and other Latin
American countries who work on North Carolina farms each year.
The union contract is believed to be a first in North Carolina
agriculture and for an H-2A employer.
Mt. Olive is not a
party to the FLOC-NCGA agreement, but a number of growers who
supply Mt. Olive suppliers are members of the NCGA.
As negotiations
progressed between FLOC and the NCGA, Mt. Olive and FLOC
negotiated a separate agreement to resolve the boycott. In
settling the boycott, Mt. Olive agreed to:
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Expand its code of
conduct for North Carolina suppliers and growers
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Increase cucumber
prices paid to North Carolina and Ohio suppliers by 2.25 percent
annually for the next three years
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Provide a 3 percent
annual supplement to growers who provide Workers Compensation
insurance coverage
“NCGA initiated
discussions with the union because it saw an opportunity to
strengthen its H-2A program in North Carolina,” said Lynn
Williams, spokesperson for Mt. Olive.
“In the past, our
company has been unable to resolve the boycott with FLOC because
we believe collective bargaining should be a process between
employers and employees," she said.
"NCGA’s decision
as an employer to negotiate with FLOC created an opportunity for
us to resolve the boycott in a manner consistent with our
position.”
-end-
Resources:
Read Mt. Olive
President Bill Bryan's
comments during the signing ceremony held Thursday, September 16
at 10 a.m. at Community United Church of Christ in Raleigh, NC.
For more information
about Mt. Olive Pickle Company, contact
Lynn Williams at 800.672.5041.
For more information
regarding the agreement between FLOC and NCGA, contact:
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Baldemar Velasquez,
President of FLOC, at 419.243.3456.
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Stan Eury, Executive
Director of the North Carolina Growers Association, at
910.245.2969.
For Mt. Olive’s
position on the FLOC boycott, see:
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