Violence in the Oasis

Hugging the Mexican border 225 miles southeast of Los Angeles lies California's Imperial Valley, a sprawling 600,000-acre oasis of mineral-rich soil and year-round sun, surrounded by the trackless wastes of the Colorado Desert. Irrigated by aqueducts from the Colorado River, this below-sea-level island in the desert yields $150 million-a-year worth of diversified agricultural products ranging from Syrian plumcots to Pakistani grapes, has nurtured a breed of rugged, Stetson-crowned farm millionaires. Last week, in a melee of millionaires, deputy sheriffs, pickets and Mexican braceros, labor violence reminiscent of the brawling 19303 erupted on the oasis.

The trouble began in the winter-lettuce fields near El Centro. Winter lettuce is the valley's most speculative product. The season lasts only three months, from mid-December through mid-March, when most other lettuce producers are weathered in. In that short space of 90 days, the valley's farmers supply the U.S. with 80% of its winter lettuce for an annual take of $22 million. Depending on Eastern supply and demand, prices rise and fall like a roller coaster. Says one grower: "It makes the stock market seem tame by comparison." Into this vulnerable area, where any work stoppage can ruin a season, moved the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to organize the valley's lettuce pickers.

Tar & Feathers. For years the labor unions have tried in vain to organize farm workers. In the '30s, such efforts in the Imperial Valley often resulted in the organizers being beaten, tarred, and feathered. But the A.W.O.C. has learned that it has powerful allies in laws, treaties and the highly perishable nature of valley crops. Of the 10,000 lettuce workers, more than 7,000 are braceros--Mexicans contracted to valley farmers for the season. By striking effectively, the A.W.O.C. could force the U.S. Labor Department, under terms of an agreement with Mexico, to order the withdrawal of the braceros if their "health and safety" were endangered.

Last month the organizers struck their first ranch, demanded pay hikes from 90-c- to $1.25 an hour. They quickly struck 14 other ranches, and, in hopes of getting the Mexicans sent home, claimed that the braceros were strike breakers. Farmers refused to give in, contended that the real objective of the A.W.O.C. was to destroy the whole bracero program. The A.W.O.C. does not deny the charge, says that if farm wage levels were raised enough, there would be an adequate supply of domestic farm workers.

Flying Squads. Last week some 300 union sympathizers, carrying signs in Spanish, BRACERO, PIDE TU LIBERTAD, staged a sitdown demonstration in front of one bracero camp to prevent the workers from going to the fields. At another camp, 38 pickets beat up the camp cook and two braceros with broom handles, threatened to set fire to the camp. The melee was broken up by a flying squad from the sheriff's office, which later stormed into a meeting at union headquarters and arrested six union leaders. Armed with shotguns and pistols, growers prowled their fields on the lookout for demonstrators, checked with each other by short-wave radios. But the growers shunned violence lest the Mexican government withdraw all the braceros from the lettuce farms.

At week's end the Mexican minister counselor in Washington prevailed upon Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg to order the removal of the 1,700 braceros employed at the 15 struck ranches. Thus emboldened, the A.W.O.C. now threatens other valley lettuce farms, will probably hit the highly perishable valley melon crop after the lettuce season ends. With a foot in the ranchers' gate, the unions are now hoping to kick the gate down.

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