Farm workers in Sunnyside, Washington and labor union United Farm Workers (UFW) are calling for a boycott of Windmill Farms’ mushrooms due to the farm’s failure to recognize the union. Workers point to unrealistic harvest quotas, union-busting, and mistreatment of workers as additional reasons for the boycott, UFW’s first since 2005.
“We don’t do it lightly,” Antonio De Loera-Brust, an organizer with UFW, tells Food Tank. “We’re doing it because the company has refused to recognize what their workers have expressed their desire to be for years now. At a certain point, we have no other option.”
Windmill Farms, formerly known as Ostrom farms, is one of the largest mushroom producers in Washington and the only producer in Sunnyside. When the farm first opened, owners promised good-paying local jobs, according to Roman Pinal, National Vice President of UFW. “They definitely oversold their presence in the community,” Pinal tells Food Tank.
In 2023, the company paid a US$3.4 million settlement in a lawsuit claiming discrimination against female workers. Around this time, the farm was purchased by international investing firm Instar, changing the farm’s name to Windmill. With the new ownership came mass firings; employees were offered their old jobs back, but at lower wages, according to UFW.
Workers at Windmill Farms were organizing even before the civil rights suit and the new management came in. Previously, Windmill employees had conducted work stoppages to protest firings. And in 2022, 70 percent of workers at Windmill Farms voted to form a union. But farm workers in most states are excluded from the federally recognized right to do so under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
The current boycott, first announced with rallies in Sunnyside and Seattle, Washington aims to pressure Windmill Farms into willingly recognizing the union. “Everyone’s expected to pick 50 pounds of mushrooms an hour, and oftentimes it’s just not feasible,” explains Pinal. He says this quota is applied regardless of whether a worker is picking a location that has already been harvested that day. “That becomes a source of disciplinary action, and then terminations are very frequent.”
Gloria Solis, who has farmed for several producers including Windmill Farms since 1998, was fired from Windmill in 2023 and continues to organize with the workers at the company. UFW believes she was fired in retaliation for her organizing efforts.
“We want better treatment at the farm. We want people to realize what’s going on, to help us,” Solis tells Food Tank. “And for those like me, who have already been fired, we really are doing this so that the workers who are still there have better treatment than we did.”
Solis works at another farm now, but says there are issues of abuse there, too. That’s why, she says, “we need a strong agricultural labor law in the state of Washington.”
While some states recognize farm workers’ right to form a union, few states require recognition of such unions or protection from retaliation, according to the National Farm Worker Ministry (NFWM). NFWM has endorsed the boycott of Windmill Farms.
The strength of the workers on Windmill Farms encourages Pinal. “They’re not in California, where the heart of the UFW is,” he explains. “And while that may be an obstacle to a lot of workers, these workers have said, well, we’re together. We’re here.”
Pinal tells Food Tank the worker committee and the general membership meet regularly, remaining rigorous about worker testimony and participation in events. Some are also traveling to urban centers around Washington to garner support for the boycott.
Pinal also believes many eaters in Washington are already on the workers’ side. “It’s not the first time farm workers in the state of Washington have asked consumers to support a boycott,” he says, referencing Cesar Chavez, who co-founded UFW in California and brought the organization to Washington. Chavez helped lead a Safeway lettuce boycott in the 1970s with workers from Yakima Valley. “So we’ve got a lot of hope. We definitely have a lot of need that we’re fighting for. And so far, the response has been very favorable.”
And Solis hopes to see community members lend their support as eaters learn of the farm workers’ stories—to pitch in their “grain of sand.”
“Farm workers have one of the hardest jobs in America right now, putting food on everyone’s table, in addition to really battling to provide for their own families,” Solis tells Food Tank. “And that deserves more attention, more awareness, folks speaking out on our behalf.”
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Photo courtesy of Yao Oo, Unsplash
