Surrounded by elegant tasting rooms and high-end hotels, farmworkers and labor organizers rallied Wednesday in Healdsburg — the center of Sonoma County’s multimillion-dollar wine industry — to announce a settlement with Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, a Geyserville-based company.
“¿Tienen miedo? ¡No! ¿Están cansados! ¡No!” workers chanted in Spanish, which translates to “Are you afraid? No! Are you tired? No!”
REVM will pay $33,548 to seven former and current employees after the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board determined the company refused to offer them jobs because of their involvement in efforts to improve working conditions. The ALRB also found that REVM required farmworkers last year to sign a contract stating they would be immediately fired if they attempted to renegotiate their compensation.
According to state officials, the company’s actions are considered unfair labor practices in violation of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act.
“We all have the right to be able to organize with our coworkers to ask for better working conditions and not be retaliated against,” said Yesenia De Luna, ALRB’s regional director. “In this case, workers were going to protests and marches asking for better wages. That’s a working condition.”
REVM did not return KQED’s multiple requests for comment.
José Alejandro Cuevas Fuentes and Yolanda Prida González are among the farmworkers named in the ALRB...
On Saturday evening, the 31st of May, President Donald Trump reposted unfounded information on social media platform Truth Social that former President Joe Biden had been “executed” in 2020 and re...