Day 138 - 20 Jun 95 - Page 74
1 Limited despite a UFW union labour dispute running since
2 1979. However, when the UFW extended their boycott to
3 McDonald's they then stopped Fresco's produce." I do not
4 invite any comment on that allegation as it stands. First
5 of all, what did Bruce Church Limited supply to McDonald's?
6 A. Lettuce.
7
8 Q. Where are they situated?
9 A. Salinas Valley, California.
10
11 Q. California. Is Fresco a trading name?
12 A. Yes, there a couple of trading names. They go under
13 Bruce Church, Fresco. It may be that company has a few
14 different trading names.
15
16 Q. In this case what is the UFW which is referred to?
17 A. The United Farm Workers, the union that Cesar Chevez
18 made famous.
19
20 Q. Cesar Chevez sounds as though he might be Hispanic in
21 origin?
22 A. Yes, he is.
23
24 Q. So is his Lordship right, that one feature in this union is
25 it represents a lot of Hispanic work?
26 A. Yes.
27
28 Q. Cesar Chevez is the leader of it. Did you have a personal
29 involvement in this matter?
30 A. Yes, I did.
31
32 Q. Briefly what was it? What happened?
33 A. I received a telephone call from Chavez who I have
34 known for some years, and Cesar Chavez told me that he was
35 going to start picketing some of our restaurants with
36 leaflets because we were doing business with Bruce Church.
37
38 Q. Why did he not want you to do business with Bruce Church?
39 A. He explained to me that they had had a continuing
40 labour dispute for some time over his attempt to organise
41 Bruce Church's farm workers, if you will.
42
43 Q. What was your reaction?
44 A. Well, first I was not sure he was serious. Cesar
45 Chavez is friendly with a lot of our Hispanic
46 owner/operators and I had known Cesar in other contexts.
47 So I told him I would look into the matter. Despite the
48 sounding of picketing our stores it was a relatively
49 friendly conversation, but I told him I would look into the
50 matter and find out what was going on from Bruce Church's
51 point of view. I invited in -- excuse me I did two
52 things. One, I went to Salinas California to take a look
53 first-hand at what was going on, speak to people within the
54 community, try to size up what was all of this about.
55 After going there I then invited -- I did not meet with
56 Bruce Church or their representatives while I was there. I
57 do not know why. I think they may not have been available
58 or whatever. I wanted to deal with the issue very quickly
59 and they were not available, but I spoke to other people
60 who could give me an assessment of what was going on.
