Union-Busters Are Using ICE to Intimidate California Wine Industry Workers

California’s wine industry runs on immigrant exploitation. Now migrant workers are unionizing.

David Bacon, TruthOut

In late July, Raul Calvo, a well-known California union-buster, called workers at the Rodney Strong Vineyards into a meeting. Salvador Ramirez, who’d labored among big wine tanks for 12 years, says he was shocked by what he heard. “He said he was just going to give us the information that he got in an email three days ago, that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] was here outside,” Ramirez remembers, noting that Calvo told workers the vineyard was technically in a border zone due to its proximity to the ocean.

Ramirez says workers were very upset — not just by Calvo’s implied threat, but because the company’s attitude had changed drastically. Last October, when there were rumors that ICE agents planned a wave of raids in the San Francisco Bay Area like those underway in Los Angeles, the company had called everyone into a meeting. Ramirez recalled, “‘You’re our workers,’ they told us. ‘We have to support you and we’re not going to allow them to come in [without a judge’s warrant]. We’re going to take care of each other.’“

Calvo did not respond to Truthout’s request for comment.

In the months afterwards, however, workers began talking with each other. They then reached out to North Bay Jobs with Justice (JwJ), a coalition of community organizations and unions in Sonoma and Napa Counties with a long history of fighting for workers’ rights. North Bay JwJ helped them organize a workplace committee, and put them in touch with Teamsters Local 665, a union with representatives on the organization’s board.