The Role of the Foreman

A major UFW objective at Verde and other union companies has been the reduction of the authority of the foreman. The establishment of a union-controlled hiring hall system was intended to take away from foremen the ability to directly select crew members and thus manipulate crews on the basis of favors. Workers are now dispatched via the hiring hall to union companies for job assignments. Once in a job individuals have the opportunity to establish both seniority with a company and an occupational classification (e.g., cutter or loader). Companies like Verde are officially bound by the contract to honor seniority and to notify the union of any impending job openings. Companywide rules and regulations with regard to seniority thus reduce the foreman's discretionary authority in placing and/or promoting workers.^[4]

According to the union contract, harvest crews at Verde are organized along the lines of seniority: crews are composed of workers with roughly the same amount of time in their individual occupations. For example, cutters with about seven years' occupational seniority will be located in the same crew. Thus, crews can remain intact from one season or production area to the next. The major exception occurs, however, in the low seniority crews. These crews, according to interviews with workers, experience greater turnover in personnel. Turnover is attributed to two factors: (1) workers who try harvesting

lettuce and decide it's not for them, and (2) work is more intermittent and, therefore, employment (and earnings) fluctuates considerably. Because they serve as a relief valve to accommodate periods of high and low production, low seniority crews often work shorter hours.

Job security and the assurance of work are the major benefits associated with seniority. Seniority workers do not receive higher wages or piece-rates for their work but they are provided more stable work than their newer counterparts. The organizational implications of these differences are quite important.

The creation of a formal grievance procedure has also been aimed at limiting the authority of foremen. Crew representatives, the equivalent of shop stewards, have used the grievance machinery for the adjudication of complaints ranging from insufficient ice water in the fields to allegedly unjustified firings. The liberal use of grievances prompted Verde's vice president to complain:

A grievance for them is nothing.... They get a day out of work maybe and we lose thousands of dollars on each one. ... During the twenty-seven years I've been associated with agriculture, I can't remember one formal grievance being filed by any of the Teamster truck drivers ... either against this company or any of its predecessors. During the first two years of our contract with the UFW we had no less than eighteen formal grievances filed. Those are grievances that went beyond the company to outside mediation.

While the union flexes its muscles through the grievance procedure, it further acts to undermine the traditionally paternalistic relationship between foremen and workers. Throughout its organizational campaigns, the union has constantly emphasized the formality of the relationship between workers and management. An organizer instrumental in the 1979 strike at Verde described it this way:

One of the biggest things we have to do is break down the walls between workers. Everybody is so used to having a deal with

their foremen that they don't know that they are all working for Mr. So-and-So and the board of directors. We just keep saying over and over, "You're a member of the United Farm Workers union and an employee of Verde Lettuce."

To enforce that distinction, the union seeks to remain visible in the fields. Union representatives are included in every crew and a companywide ("ranch") committee of representatives meets regularly with management. Negotiation committees are also staffed by rank-and-file members, though like other unions contract negotiators are primarily paid union staff.

Although hiring halls, grievance procedures, and union representation cannot by themselves limit the authority of the foremen, they do act to circumscribe the foreman's discretion, particularly when compared with the situation at Miracle. In the ground crews particularly the union has sought to increase the strength of the crew organization as a means by which to ensure some protection from arbitrary managerial intervention. However, an examination of the organization of the high and low seniority crews suggests that crew strength, especially in terms of the crew ability to withstand management intervention in work organization, is inversely related to crew seniority.