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"THE YO! CE OF THE FARf'1 WORKER"

February 21, 1968 Vol. 2, #1 Delano, Cal ifornia

8 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

9 IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF KERN

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HOW CAUSEONTEMPT

TTEE, AFL- CIO, TO CESAR

Giumarra's guns and brutalviolence have failed to breakthe Union or halt the six-monthold strik~ of the United FarmWorkers 'Organizi ng Cbmmit~tee. Now the growers are at- .tempting a monstrous frame-up which, i! successful,. couldJland Cesar Chavez, EpifanioCamacho, and the entire pic-ket line in prison.

Picket cap ta i n Camacho,charged with contempt of an

aont. on page Jhereto

vs.

GIUMARRA BROS. FRUIT CO., a limitedpartnership; GIUMARRA FARMS, INC.,a California corporation; andGIUMARRA VINEYARDS CORPORATIOCalifornia corporation,

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2/El Malcriado, February 21, 1968

fDrroR'ALWe are accused I Carranza convicted I

by Cesar E. ChavezDirector,

United Farm Workers Organizing Committee

With Giumarra and his expensive lawyers nowaccusing us of violeftce and crime, they areshowing us that after six months of the strike,they still do not understand our aims.

It is with the deepest sorrow that we see howlittle we are understood. The world alreadysuffers from enough misera and bloodshed,without our adding fued to the flames. Our onlygoal is to end the suffering and paid of the farmworker's life.

mthe very depths of our beings we unde.r -stand the futility of violence. Even when weare brutally attacked, we do' not reply in kind ...We ~t tempt always to remember the words ofthe great Mexican libertarian Benito Juarez,who said, "Respect for the rights of others isthe essence of peace. "

We have complete faith in the judicial systemfor eventually achieving justice. We demandonly our right to speak freely, to explain ourpoint of view to the farm workers, that theymay decide ...

To resort to violence for resolving our dif-ficulties would be to admit that we have no con-fidence in the inherent justice of our cause.

Now they accuse us of having burned theirproperty, of having insulted them, of havingthreatened them.. We have always said, and wesay once aga,.in:

If there are members of the Union responsi-ble for acts of violence against Giumarra, theymust turn themselves in. The Union will as-sist them with all of the legal assistance avail-able to us, and with all of the moral supportwecan produce.

If there are those outside the Union who thinkthey are helping us in this way, they are mis-taken. We abhor Violence, we do not use it ourselves, and we do not wish it in any form.

But if the recent fires and other acts of vio-lence of which we are accused are a frame-uQby the grower, we should like to advise him thatwe have no fear. If Giumarra thinks he can de-stroy our spirit and break the Union with a fewlawsuits, he is very mistaken.

We wil fight in court, on the picket lin~, inthe press, and on the boycott, until the exploi·-tation of farm w';)rkers in the United Statescomes to an end.

We have no fear of prison, nor of the brutali-ty which the scabs have shown against us. Weshall not concede the battle; we shall not sur -render.

But we have no need to resort to violence.The events of recent weeks have proven to usthat the evil intentions are not ours.

Whatever happens, may the Cause live on.

Patron Giumarra is trying to send Cesar Cha-vez and other farm workers to jail because theystand less than 50 feet apart when picketing hisvineyards. Yet the grower and his friends standaccused, and in some cases, convicted, of break-ing serious federal laws and the state laborcode, denying the civil rights of the workers,to say nothing of totally disregarding theirhuman rights as free men.

A recent example is the conviction of Clau-dio Carranza, a labor contractor who recruitedworkers for Giumarra. Carranza was convicted inFederal Court in San Diego of illegally trans-porting and harboring aliens (wetbacks), to workfor Giumarra. When the wetbacks were caught,they were hidden in Giumarra's camp on Avenue 72in Tulare County. Another contractor, MiguelCorona, who was caught transporting and harbor-ing wetbacks for Giumarra claimed he "didn'tknow" that they were wetbacks.

The wetbacks are guilty of breaking thestrike. But theLr principal "crime" is beinghungry and needing a job. We don't really blamethem. The contractors are guilty of breakingthe strike. But the wetbacks and their recruit-ers are pawns in the growers' game. The reallyguilty people in these cases are the growers,who profit from the misery and poverty in Mexi-co, and use this human suffering, to break thestrikes, destroy the Union, and force wages andconditions in the United States down to the lev-els of poverty and misery in Mexico. It is thegrowers wilo should be punished, not the strikebreakers.

Your part in La LuchaThe Giumarra Corporations, feel ing the ef

fects of the picket I ine in Delano, and the intensive boycott activity in New York, have renewed their attacks against the United FarrTWorkers Organizing Committee.

This has taken the form of physical violenceand the beating of strike members, the operdisplay of guns by Giumarra foremen and a massive legal attack against the Union. They seerrto be planning wholesale arrests of the strikers, including Cesar Chavez and the other of-ficers, not on specific crimnal charges, but on"contempt of court" citations for violating the'extremely restrictive injunction which Giu-,marra obtained last summer. The strikers facejail sentences and heavy fines.

Because of these new attacks, we ask onceagain that you, the members, friends, and sup-porters of the United Farm Workers, rally toour cause. Non-violence has been and IS a basicpart of the program of the United Farm Workermovement. But to fight back non-violently, weneed help from our friends more than ever.

You can write to Joseph and Sal Giumarra,(Box 1969, Bakersfield, Cal if.) and demand thathe give his workers those basic rights whichother workers enjoy. Inform Giumarra and hisbroker, Victor Joseph & Sons (467 Sylvana, En-glewood, N.J.), that you support the boycott ofGiumarra's table qrapes.

El Malariado, February 21, 1968/3

Frame-upaont. from page 1

anti-strike injunction in effectsince August, entered a pleaof not-guilty on Thursday,February 15, in Kern County.Superior Court.

camacho and Chavez, bothcited as defendants in the con-tempt complaint, face possibletwo-month jail sentences anda total of $12,000 in fines ifconvicted on the 12 counts ofGiumarra - alleged inj unctionviolations.

The Giumarra complaintattempts to link "mysteriousfires" with threats supposedlymade by Camacho, and furtherclaims that Union defendantsthrew dirt clods at one ChuckBeighle, a Giumarra foreman'known to the s t r ike r s as"Bugsy. "

Short hours before Camacho,was served with the subpoenaon Va Ie n tin e's Da y, JohnGiumarra, Jr. told U FW 0 Cattorney Jerry Cohen, "I wasjust up in Delano meeting withso m e growers, figuring de-vious ways to get rid of youguys. "I 'T h e injunction in questionwas iss u e d last summer bySuperior Court Judge J. Kelly/Steele, who severely restric-ted picketing activities, .anawho unsuccessfully attemptedto limit UFWOC's freedom ofspeech by forbidding the useof bull horns.

The subpoena named Cama-cho, one of the Union's mosteffective pickets for more thantwo years, Cesar Chavez, and300 "John Does." In additionto all e g e d violations of the

Stee Ie injunction, two of thetwelve counts clearly lay thegroundwork for further char-ges of either arson, conspiracyto commit arson, or both.

When a recent fire destroyeda Giumarra packing shed, themulti-m ill i 0 na ire growerstated publically that he wassure the Union was not impli-cated. The subpoena servedFebruary 14, however, statesthat Molotov cocktails startedrecent fires, and implies thatUnion members were respon-sible.

The case is scheduled for a"show-cause" hearing beforeSteele on February 26. Underthe "show-cause" procedure,the entire burden of proof fallson the Union, which means, ineffect that officers'and mem-bers of the Union are consi-dered guilty until proven in-nocent!

The obvious purpose of thegrowers is to hang a frame-upon the Union, thereby changingan effective picket line into asilent skeleton. Phony alle-gations of arson and ridiculouscharges of clod-hurling nowreplace the red-baiting of Old,but the intent is the same.

Giumarra seems to havereached a panic point, as thefrequent presence of guns inthe fields and the recent brutalbeating of a Un ion subpoenaserver indicate.

A foolish attempt to hang theUnion on phony charges will bemet with increased activity onthe part of the Union, an.d willonly serve to show the remain-ing Giumarra scabs the truecolors of "Patroncito. "

4/El Malcriado, FebT'Uary 21, 1968

Scabs beat Hirsch/

Fred Hirsch, a volunteer for the United Farm Workers, iswheeled in to an ambulance after being attacked and beatenby Armando Robles and over 20 other scab employees of Giu-marra Fruit Corporation. Malcriado photo.

police report.Th ree days later, when

Hirsch and United Farm Wor-kers attorney Jerry Cohen metwith the D. A., Ne 1son stillrefused to allow him to sign acomplaint, and then announcedthat a warrant might be issuedfor the arrest of Hirsch. TheD. A. suggested that Hi l' s c hcould be charged with attackinga woman, and suggesfed- thatthe scab crews of over a dozenpeople were acting in "self-defense" when they beat upHirsch. And al though the D. A.claims to be making a "fulland complete investigation,"the one w it n e s s na med byHirsch, Cesar Chavez, ha snever been questioned or evenapproached for questioning.

fused to take them, he deli-cately laid them at her feet.Then he turned to go, and be-gan walking away. At this pointRobles and his men attackedHirsch.

The Sheriff's Department ofKern County acted shamelessly.in this case. They did call anambulance for Hirsch and gethim to a hospital. But thoughthey asked him a few questions,the cops failed to arrest any ofthe assailants. Several dayslater, after his release fromthe hospital, Hirsch appealedto the District Attorney's of-fice for a complaint a ga in,s tRobles and the other Giumarrascabs who had attacked him.But the D. A. told him to wait.He was not allowed to see Hie

At noon of February 3, FredHi l' s c h, a volunteer for theUnited Farm Workets Organi-zing Committee, en tel' e d afield to serve legal papers ontwo Gi ur~arra foremen. Thesesubpoenas directed the fore-men to appear in co u l' t andanswer questions about illegalrecruitment of strikebreakersby Giumarra and his agents.A man may legally enter theGiumarra property if acting onofficial business, so Hirschhasi a legal right to enter theproperty and give the forementhe subpoenas. After locatingArmando Rob 1e s, the mainG i um.a l' l' a foreman at thisranch, he attempted to seek outBetty Medina, another "fore-man" and labor recruiter.

If Betty Medina was with hercrew, she was apparently ·a-fraid to accept the court docu-ment which would force her totestify, under oath, about il-legal recruitment practices.Hirsch came upon the crew asthey gathered for lunch, and- aITof the scabs denied that Medinawas there. But Hirsch knewshe was there, so he stayed.Someone called the police, butsince Hirsch was on legal bu-siness, he had nothing to fearfrom the police. Then some-one went to get the pruningcrew of AmandoRohles. Rob-les and his men arrived, m3.nyof them carry~ng p l' U n in gshears, and approached Hirschin a t h rea ten i n g manner.Hirsch then served the paperson the woman he thought wasMrs. Medina. When she re-

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