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a Despite widespread misconduct
In elections and _ continued

unrelenting intimidation from
frowers, the embattled United
Farm Workers of America
emerged stronger from the second
Week of balloting in the critical
Vote to determine who will
Tepresent agricultural workers in
the California fields.

The vote was ordered earlier this
Month under the auspices of the
newly-established Agricultural
Labor Relations Board following

_ passage of enabling legislation
through the California State
_ Legislature.

The new board announced that

as of September 19, the UF WA had

- Won 9,108 votes to 5,528 for the

International Brotherhood of
_ Teamsters. Some 2,891 workers
Voted for no union.

The votes, however, are still not
fully representative as the IBT,
having held sweetheart contracts
With almost all growers for

| anywhere from three to five years,

_ xploited the advantage of its
Icumbency in the initial period.

=. In addition, the board and courts

either did not enforce or openly
Violated the right — supposedly
_ Suaranteed under the new law — of
_ UFWA organizers to meet with
Workers on grower property. Thus

_ 4 majority of votes was virtually

- Siven to the IBT at certain ran-
ches, :

One UFWA organizer noted the
Obstacles thrown in the way of
Meeting with farm workers,
Commenting ‘‘we’re seeing guards,
dogs, locks and fences that the
&rowers never had before.”’

Cesar Chavez, head of the UF-

: Wa, has served notice that his
Union will challenge the entire
Clection procedure as a result of
the grower interference.

Hundreds of complaints over the

Conduct of the elections and the
Clear evidence of . continuing
SWeetheart relations between the
frowers and the IBT have already
flooded the labor board.

. Last week, the board, acting on
Complaints from the UF WA, stated

that one important grower had
threatened to kill workers who
supported the UFWA in the repre-
sentation ballot.

The complaint was among two
lengthy charges of unfair labor
practices served September 25 on
San Joaquin Valley farmers. The
growers were the Marco
Zaninovich Farms of Tulare and
Fresno Counties which produce
grapes and other crops, and the
Tex-Cal Corporation, near Delano,
which raises grapes, sugar beets
and other products.

Farmworkers’ organizers had
earlier charged that armed
foremen at the Elmco Ranch in the
San Joaquin Valley had warned
Arab field workers: ‘If Chavez
wins, there’s going to be some dead
Arabs here.”

The complaint against
Zaninovich said field hands were
warned of “‘physical violence” if
they supported the UFWA.

Walter L. Kintz, general counsel
for the Agricultural Labor
Relations Board, added, ‘‘You can
quote this agency as saying the
threats of physical violence were of
the magnitude of death.”’

Kintz labelled the charges “of
the utmost seriousness — the sort
of things that are classically
destructive of employees’ rights.”

The complaints also stated that
seven workers had been dismissed
for union activity and charged
restraint and coercion against
employees.

Zaninovich, who has a contract
with the Teamsters, was served
with the charges just at the time
that workers voted heavily to
switch to the UFWA. Results of the
vote showed 238 workers for the
UFWA, 53 for the Teamsters and
197 for no union.

Challenged and not counted were
28 key ballots. The UFWA would
have to win 21 of the 28 in order to
avoid a runoff vote against the
supporters of no union.

Both of the complaints in the -

case came as aresult of protests by
the UFWA and a preliminary in-
vestigation by the board staff. If

Ten years ago this month, the United Farm Workers —than the United
Farm Workers Organizing Committee — began its historic battle to win
collective bargaining rights for thousands of agricultural workers. This
struggle is now reaching its climax with the representation vote now
being held in fields throughout California.

proven, the charges could result in
growers being forced to reinstate
fired workers with full back wages.

Other ‘‘appropriate remendies”
were also being considered, Kintz
stated. He added that the results of
the election could be challenged,
depending on the outcome of the
hearing.

Several votes in other fields have
also been held up — and with them
the determination of representa-
tion — because the California
Board is still undecided on the
voting rights of farm workers who
were on strike since the IBT’s
takeover of their contracts.

The National Labor Relations
Board — established for 40 years —
allows strikers to vote.

In the case of Gallo Wines, a key
contract, the number of strikers
surpasses the counted majority for
the IBT. However, the Board does

not seem to be in any hurry to
settle the issue of voting rights of
strikers — the hearing is not ex-
pected until October 6.

Including the challenge votes of
strikers, the UFWA has stated, it
has won the Gallo election. And
had the result been recognized at
the time of balloting, the trend
favoring the UFWA in the elections
that followed would have been
stronger. In fact, it could have
been decisive in the case of close
votes.

A similar reluctance to move
also helped the IBT in votes at the
156 ranches in the Western
Growers Association.

The IBT and the growers counted
on all 156 as one unit in the belief
that the sweetheart relationship
would get enough ballots on an
association-wide basis. The UFWA

ee LL A el a le AU

Farmworkers pulling ahead in vote

insisted on the right of workers in
each ranch to determine the union
they wanted. However, the voting
took place at many ranches
without any resolution of the issue
and the ballots were impounded for
nearly a week.

The board finally opted for
separate units and began tallying
the ballots. .

With results not yet complete,
the UFWA appears to be in front
with 1,814 votes to the IBT’s 1,119
with 608 voting for no union.

The IBT succeeded in winning 13
ranches but the 12 ranches won by
the UFWA were generally the
larger units.

Chavez’ announcement that the
UFWA would move to challenge
the whole election procedure has
also prompted action in various
circles, including the ad-
ministration of California governor
Brown.

The California Supreme Court
has nullified the decisions of lower
courts which gave growers a right
to deny access to unwanted union
representatives and prevent them
from talking to workers before or
after work or during rest. This was
one of the key complaints of the
UFWA because the lower court
ruling effectively gave the IBT —
which had the contract — exclusive
right to reach the workers.

The reversal of the decision may
be of some significance although
other obstacles presented by
growers have also impeded the
‘UFWA organizing campaign.

In Gallo Wines, the growers did
allow UFWA organizers nominal
access but stationed security
guards to follow them throughout
the fields, photographing and
noting the names of any field hands
who talked to them.

The outcome of the hearing on
voting rights at Gallo Wines, as

well as the results of the charges of —

coercion in the San Joaquin Valley
ranches, will be of decisive im-
portance for the UFWA. But
already the union, with 10 years of
struggle behind it, has won some
major victories.

Campaign

_ “Something to sink your teeth
Into’. .. dental care for children’”’
Teads a brochure issued by the
Social Planning and Review
Council of B.C. as part of a cam-
Paign for a school-based dental
Clinic system in B.C.

Actually a dental plan is not now

the issue since the provincial

80vernment has assured us that we
will have a plan for children. The
question is, what kind of dental
Plan will there be?

In searching for an answer to the

- question, the provincial govern-
-™ent earlier this year com-
Missioned the Evans Report on
Children’s Dental Health in B.C.
he committee preparing the
Teport was chaired by Dr. Robert
: ae a professor of economics at

A few weeks ago the Evans
Report was submitted to Health
Minister Cocke. It offered four

_ °ptions in providing a dental plan
for children. Almost immediately
the debate was on, with SPARC
arguing strongly for a school-based
Clinie system which the Evans

€port characterizes as

Cheapest and best, and of course

© dentists voicing alarm that
€ir lucrative enterprise might be
'ampered with.

According to Robert Hicks,

President of the dentist’s

sociation, the B.C. College of
ental Surgeons, the dentist’s

Private office serving his private

Practice is the only workable way
fix teeth.

_- That is about the kind of

_ Statement that we could expect

the.

from the head of a professional
group the members of which have
grown fat in recent years while the
rest of the population suffered with
rotting teeth — for the most part
because no one could afford the
blood money demanded by the
dentist.

To begin with, as the Evans
Report reveals, 40% of all children
in B.C. between the ages of five and
14 do not see a dentist in any one
year. If there is any doubt that it is
jargely a financial matter, the

Report shows that when ‘those -

children with dental insurance
were taken as a group, 70% of
children go to the dentist at least

once a year. eee
The result of such a situation is

startling. Over 95 per cent of 15

year olds in B.C. have cavities and *

each one averages three rotten
teeth. Roughly 30 per cent of
children in their early teens have
gum disease and an estimated 27
per cent of children in the seven to
15 year bracket have severe

malocclusion or improper bite.
Nearly 10 per cent of all those six to
11 years old should wear braces.

The problem of dental health in
B.C. assumes larger proportions
the further away from Vancouver
you go. In Trail, SPARC says,
almost every 15 year old has five
cavities. ss

Not only do the dentists, through
the College of Dental Surgeons,
charge what they like, but. they
also decide who is to be privileged
with dental care at all. In other
words, if you live in a posh, com-
fortable area of Vancouver or
Victoria the chances of seeing a
dentist are pretty good. If you live
in a rural or northern area of B.C.

“— forget it. In fact there are about

1,600 people for every dentist in
Vancouver, which, considering the
cavity rate, could be better. But in
the northern regions of B.C. 4,178
people scramble for one dentist’s
attention:

So much for the dentist’s point of
view. It is hard to think how the
private dentistry profession could
have a worse record.

Against such a record it was
understandable that there was a
lack of hysteria from the dentists
when the government announced
its intention of providing dental
care for children. They would still
have the adult market sewn up and
it would most likely be easier
anyway to collect from the
government than from working

class parents hard up against it.

The Evans Report saw right

through the dental stickup. It-

proposes four options — one of

emerging on dental care

which is obviously the most
reasonable and which sets down
entirely different rules.

The fourth option of the Evans
Report is to establish.a series of
dental clinics in the public schools.
It proposes to train a whole new
staff to work these clinics. The new
staff would not be dentists as such
but rather ‘‘dental therapists’? who
would be qualified to do most work
that dentists do with the exception
of oral surgery. It is a similar
concept to the ‘‘paramedics’’
common in socialist countries.

Through this new system more
than 90 per cent of children aged
three to 17 could be reached as
opposed to a maximum of 80 per
cent under a private practice
system. :

But it is the price factor that gets
right at the heart of the problem of
dental health. To maintain a
system based on private practice
would cost 40 per cent more than
one in the schools. The extra 40 per
cent would obviously end up in the
dentists’ pockets. This means that
the present price structure for
children’s teeth is 40 per cent
higher than it need be.

The dentist will reply that in the
lower priced dental clinic system
much of the work is to be done by

_ therapists, and for the lower fee

the public will pay the price of
losing the expertise of the dentist.

The public can only stand to gain -

from a dental clinic system. It will
be less expensive and much more

program

| effective in providing dental health

| for children. And there is nothing
sacred about the expertise of the
dentist. In fact, the breaking down
of elite organizations like the
College of Dental Surgeons will be
a great advance in making den-
tistry serve the needs of the
majority of people.

The College of Dental Surgeons
will not allow the school-based
clinics to be established without a
fight. Certainly they can afford to
lobby their point of view with

. tremendous force.

SPARC, for their part, insist that
they. are non-political. They boast
of NDP’ers and Conservatives
sharing positions on _ their
executive, but heading the SPARC
campaign is “Mrs. Davie Fulton,”
as she calls herself.

It seems that SPARC is political
but owing to its upper class
composition it is unlikely that it
will be capable of fighting the kind
of political battle needed to ensure
that children’s teeth come befo
dentists’ incomes. :

Already organizations such as
the Registered Nurses Association,
the Foster Parents Association and
the Indian Homemakers — and
notably, a number of local school
boards — have endorsed the
school-based dental clinic plan.

Hopefully, these organizations
will be followed by scores of others
-who will let Dennis Cocke know
what we want.

= PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 3, 1975—Page 3

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