CHAPTER 9: The Long Haul

The union has always operated on a shoe-string budget. In 1982, at the height of union activity, CFU President Raj Chouhan and Secretary-Treasurer Sarwan Boal told Columbian reporter Terry Glavin that Chouhan was selling his house and the union was surviving on a $3,000-a-month grant from the Canadian Labour Congress. Chouhan was looking for a job and working for the union in his spare time. Boal was working part-time as a needs analyst for an ESL project for farmworkers paid for by the B.C.Teachers’ Federation. Chouhan said "No one said it was going to be easy - all the unions are hurting a little. I guess we’re just going to hurt a lot, for a little while."

By the mid 1980s the situation was critical. The CFU couldn’t look to farmworkers for much in the way of funds, and had always been dependant on help from government grants for specific projects and money donated by unions like the Hospital Employees’ Union and the Canadian Auto Workers. What limited resources they did have were often tied up in legal battles at the LRB over certification and decertification bids. Growers agitated among the workers at union-certified farms for decertification votes and continued to stall negotiations for new contracts.

The CFU did enjoy some success. In March 1983 workers at Choi's Mushroom Farm signed union cards and the CFU was about to apply for certification. But farm owner Chung Yong Choi fired five of the pro-union workers claiming they had stolen two tubs of mushrooms. Choi later fired a sixth worker on the same charge, even though she had not even been working on the farm at the time. The CFU took the case to the Labour Relations Board, which eventually gave the union certification at the farm and ruled that Choi had to rehire all six workers with back pay for the 10 months since they had been fired. Although Choi rehired the workers he adamantly refused to pay the money.

The mushroom growers had banded together to keep the union out and with the help of a representative from the Fraser Valley Mushroom Growers’ Co-op Choi stalled contract talks for the next 18 months. Eventually the remaining workers were pressured into a decertification. Choi still refused to pay and finally sold the farm, but not before threatening to kill Sarwan Boal when Boal served him with a court order.The CFU kept after the back wages and with the help of the B.C. Law Union took the case all the way to the B.C. Supreme Court. In December 1987 the workers finally got the $35,000 they were owed.

The ease of decertification kept the CFU on the defensive. At Fraser Valley Frozen Foods, where the union had represented 60 field workers, the company launched several bids to oust the CFU. The company cut the number of field workers down to nine and complained that it could not compete if it had to pay union wages. Workers were told the operation was planning to amalgamate with another company and that would mean no expansion of production and more job loss. Pro-management workers were encouraged to spread the word that if the union was decertified there would be more work.

Blocked by the mushroom growers, the union turned its sights on berry farms, but had little success. Despite the numerous decertification bids, countered by the union filing suits for unfair labour practices, the union held on. In 1989, the CFU and Fraser Valley Frozen Foods signed a landmark three-year contract. For the first time, the contract included the provision of the federally-inspired Workplace Hazardous Material Information (WHMIS) program. While the contract still allowed the company to use pesticides, workers would now be trained in their safe application and use and workers could refuse to spray pesticides without fear of company retribution.

Burnout was taking its toll as was the continued resistance from the growers. As well, the migrant nature of the work meant that after 3 or 4 years, older people often stopped farm work and younger people found better jobs elsewhere, so it was like starting all over again. "When we started in ‘79 I was convinced that in 10 years we would have the largest farmworkers union in the world," says Chouhan. "A few years later I thought differently."

The financial situation remained critical, despite fundraising dinners and union sponsorships. Boal says the problem was that because of the meager wages made by the farmworkers, the union always needed outside help. "We changed the dues structure three times - at one point it was even $65 a year - but we couldn’t expect farmworkers to pay a lot of money to belong to the union. If a family of five all worked in the fields and we charged $100 a year each to belong, then that would be $500 - alot of money for them." So the dues structure was designed for what people could pay. "The way we did it for years was to have 25 dues-paying members and that way we could be affiliated with the groups like the CLC - they let us get by with that. But it created problems. If our membership started to climb, some people in the CLC would say ‘hey, how come they’re only paying for 25,'" says Boal.

The Canadian Labour Congress finally dropped its regular financial support for the CFU in 1986. "The CLC had been backing us, but as we lost certifications it started to push for us to merge with another union. I had talks with labour leaders, but we were insistent that the CFU keep its name - we were a unique organization and we had fought hard to get the union. So that was a problem. We weren’t a traditional trade union - we were a social movement as well," explains Boal.

Talk of shutting down started in 1984, and talk of merging with a larger food-processing union persisted. But Boal says that the problem has always been that "other unions just see their money going in a hole - we can’t charge dues like other unions."

While the union fought a rear-guard action against the provincial labour code, changes to the federal Immigration Act in 1985 added a further complication. In the late ‘80s, an influx of new immigrants was arriving from Fiji and Laos. As well, East Indian family members were now allowed into Canada to join families that were already here.

The changes to the farm workforce made organizing a nightmare. "A lot of Laotians and Fijians started working on the mushroom farms, which meant we now had to organize in five different languages - Punjabi, Chinese, Fijian, Laotian and English. We got a Chinese-speaking organizer and a Laotian-speaking organizer and we managed to bring the membership back up to 700, but we just couldn’t get a unit," says Boal.

"We had stretched ourselves too wide. We had to shut down the office in Ontario and the organizing in the Okanagan. We had made some progress in the Okanagan, but if you organize workers you then have to service them or it’s no good. We just couldn’t afford that. At our last big demonstration against Unemployment Insurance regulations in 1989 we got our best turnout ever - about 1,500 people. A lot of people joined up, but we had no certifications and unemployment insurance had become the focus for field workers, not organizing," says Boal.

In 1986, Raj Chouhan stepped down as president and long-time organizer Judy Cavanagh left. Sarwan Boal served as president until 1989 when Jawala Singh Grewal took the helm. Charan Gill became president of the B.C. Organization to Fight Racism and Boal became an appeal commissioner for the WCB. Chouhan took a job as chief negotiator for the B.C. Hospital Employees' Union. For a time, organizing took a back seat to pesticide research and education as the Deol Society gained prominence.