Workers continue to speak out about conditions at a Sunnyside mushroom farm that changed hands earlier this year.
The owners of Ostrom Mushroom Farms sold the facility to Canadian mushroom grower Windmill Farms in February. It came after workers’ call for a union and a lawsuit from the state attorney general’s office.
At an April 18 rally, workers resumed their public campaign for recognition and better working conditions. It was the first public action held in Sunnyside by United Farm Workers, a union that represents farmworkers, since the change in ownership.
Workers with UFW spoke for the first time publicly about conditions at Windmill Farms, saying that they have not received sick days, the work environment is oppressive and local workers are being pushed out.
Windmill Farms officials say they are not affiliated with the former owners. They said they are focused on improving working conditions and the plant follows the law.
Worker leader fired
Jose Martinez began working at Ostrom mushroom farms in Sunnyside in the sanitation department in 2019 as the facility on Midvale Road was being built. He previously worked in fruit packing and at a dairy farm, where he was a plaintiff in a lawsuit that helped farmworkers win overtime pay in Washington.
Martinez was one of the first workers to organize and advocate for a union with United Farm Workers (UFW) at the mushroom farm. He was fired on April 20, just days after the UFW rally on Midvale Road where he made a speech.
UFW believes the termination was retaliatory, according to an email from Communications Director Antonio De Loera. Windmill Farms did not comment on the termination.
After Windmill Farms bought the mushroom farm, Martinez said he was one of many of workers who was told to change jobs to stay employed. In February, he started work as a mushroom picker. In April, Martinez was told he was not meeting production quota of 50 pounds of mushrooms per hour, he said. A firing form provided to the Yakima Herald-Republic by Martinez and the UFW lists the reason as “unsatisfactory performance.”
After Windmill Farms bought the mushroom farm, the UFW said the company fired workers and rehired them in different positions, including Martinez. Windmill Farms said it offered employment to all employees at the facility, along with a benefits package for workers and their families.
“For various people, they said ‘If you don’t want this, there is the door. Do the jobs we haven’t filled.’ They told me picking was a majority of those jobs,” Martinez said in Spanish.
Martinez said other workers who did not meet the production quotas, even those who had been hired before him, were not fired. He added that the termination came in the middle of a probationary training period for a new job.
“They wanted to put us in 90 days of training. But on the 60th day, they told me to leave, after the march,” Martinez said in Spanish.
Changes in staff
Martinez said he was not the only worker who has been fired. UFW said as many as “half the original workers” had been fired or forced and replaced with workers from a labor agency outside the community, according to an email from De Loera.
“They are replacing all the workers they fire purely with workers from the agency,” Martinez said.
After purchasing the mushroom farm, Windmill Farms CEO Clay Taylor said the new owners would try to keep Ostrom staff employed at the mushroom farm. He said he was pleased workers had agreed to stay on with Windmill Farms. Taylor added that Windmill Farms employed new leadership at the mushroom farm on Midvale Road.
“We have established an entirely new, highly experienced and professional local leadership team at Sunnyside to improve operations, ensure a discrimination-free workplace, and enhance opportunities for employees,” Taylor said in April 20 email.
Taylor said there had been some staffing turnover at the mushroom farm, which employs around 200 people. Windmill Farms did not comment on where those workers are from.
“Several new employees have joined our team and we expect to be adding another 20 to 25 positions in the next few months as we increase production,” Taylor said in an email on April 28.
At the rally on April 18, workers said the new workers with the labor agency were not local. Martinez said many came from different areas in Mexico.
When asked about employing H-2A workers, foreign laborers on seasonal work visas, as Ostrom had done, Taylor said Windmill Farms was focused on hiring local workers.
“Our focus is on employing local workers to meet our needs in Sunnyside and partner with the community to continue contribute to the economic development and betterment of those in the immediate area,” Taylor said in an email on Feb. 28.
Windmill Farms also operates a mushroom farm in Ashburn, Ontario, Canada. Santiago Escobar, a representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in Canada, said he had received complaints from workers at Windmill Farms’ address there.
He also said Windmill Farms utilized the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), a Canadian program that allows companies to hire foreign labor for up to two years, to employ workers from Guatemala. Windmill Farms did not comment on the TFWP.
Conditions
Martinez said there had been several improvements, but added there was too much pressure on workers and that the environment was oppressive.
He noted that the production quotas had been decreased from 60 pounds under Ostrom’s management to 50 pounds. He added that around the time he was fired, a bonus was added for portabella mushrooms.
Still, he said, 50 pounds was a high quota that some workers struggled to meet. One of workers’ first complaints when organizing last year was that production quotas had been instituted at all. Martinez said workers felt pressured and rushed and alleged concerns were not being adequately addressed by the human resources department on site.
Escobar said UFCW has received complaints about long hours and pressure to meet quotas and work quickly from workers at one Windmill Farms’ facilities in Canada. He added that similar issues were common among migrant farmworkers in the country.
Windmill Farms did not comment on working conditions at facilities in Canada.
The state attorney general sued Asellus, the company that owned Ostrom, last year alleging, among other things, discrimination against female and domestic workers. Asellus denied the allegations in court documents filed in January.
Taylor said Windmill Farms was not affiliated with the mushroom farm’s previous owners or management. Taylor has focused on creating a “family-like employee culture” and ending discrimination in the workplace.
“If we are going to succeed we must all work cooperatively together, respect each other and promote a safe and healthy work environment,” Taylor said in an email. “Each week we are seeing steady improvement in our Sunnyside operations and this is a direct result of our entire team working together cooperatively.”
Windmill Farms has offered workers in Sunnyside a generous benefits package that extended to their families, Taylor said.
Sick leave
One of workers’ primary concerns at the April 18 rally was lack of sick leave. Workers said any sick leave accumulated while working for Ostrom was not transferred over when Windmill Farms took over in February.
Workers said they would receive warnings after absences, even if they had documents from a doctor. After several warnings, workers said they were punished with unpaid suspensions or firings.
“I was sick, I went to the doctor and when I came back with a doctor’s note, the doctor’s note wasn’t respected,” Martinez said in Spanish.
Taylor said in an April 20 email that the company follows state law.
“Windmill Farms sick day policy is compliant with the laws in the state of Washington and policies on absences from work, are reasonable and well defined,” Taylor said.
According to the state Department of Labor and Industries, workers accrue paid sick leave at a minimum of one hour for every 40 hours worked. That sick leave cannot be used until workers’ have been employed for 90 days. It has been less than 90 days since Windmill Farms purchased the Midvale Road facility from Ostrom.
Martinez said his termination will not end his hope for a union contract at Windmill Farms. Workers informally voted to organize with UFW in September 2022, but neither Ostrom nor Windmill Farms has recognized the union, nor are they required to under federal law.
He is one of many former workers who continues to turn out at rallies to advocate for change in the workplace.
“I want to continue this fight because, I believe there are, I’m sick of watching so many injustices,” Martinez said. “I’m going to fight … until the end. I don’t care what happens.”
