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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 10, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Florida: Labor marches for mushroom workers

By Dianne Mathiowetz in Quincy, Fla.

On June 28 under a blazing hot sun, some 2,000 supporters of Florida mushroom workers fighting for union rights marched and chanted their way through this town, home of Quincy Farms and its main product, Prime Mushrooms.

Just 20 miles from the state capital of Tallahassee, Quincy's 7,500 people are divided into a very wealthy few and the many who work for minimum wage or less.

Dozens of national and state labor, civil-rights, women's, community, student and religious organizations sent delegations to the action. Among the rally speakers were Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Dr. Joseph Lowery, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists President Bill Lucy, and Quincy Mayor Millie Forhand.

Quincy Farms produces 20 million pounds of mushrooms annually. Some 550 workers pick and package mushrooms for up to 10 hours a day at low wages with no benefits and under poor working conditions. Divided just about evenly between Black and Latino workers, many are women.

The union struggle erupted on March 14, 1996, when 85 workers held a demonstration at the front gate of the plant during their lunch break. They chanted and carryied signs calling for higher wages and better working conditions. Police arrested 25 after Quincy Farms President Rick Lazzarini called the sheriff to stop the protest. All 85 workers were fired.

Lazzarini-whose new 12,000-square- foot home is reminiscent of old slaveholders' plantations-refuses to bargain with the Farm Workers. He claims the workers are lying about their low pay and miserable conditions.

A boycott of Prime Mushrooms, sold mostly in Florida and the Southeast, has been called to pressure Quincy Farms management and its owner-Sylvan Inc. of Pennsylvania-to negotiate.

Juana Alas, one of the workers arrested and fired in 1996, spoke to the crowd in Spanish. Thanking all those who support the mushroom workers, she tearfully concluded, "This struggle for justice is for our children."

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