BERRY PICKERS VOTE ON UNION; UFW SEES POLL AS PIVOTAL TEST.

Byline: Martha Mendoza Associated Press 

Berry pickers employed by the nation's biggest strawberry grower voted Wednesday on whether to unionize, a key test of the United Farm Workers' long-running effort to restore its once-formidable clout in agriculture.

Before beginning their tally, officials late Wednesday were trying to determine whether 138 people who voted were currently employed by Coastal Berry Co.

The UFW committed itself to winning such a vote at Coastal Berry five years ago, hoping a victory there would create momentum for similar successes throughout California's farm fields.

But despite unusual advantages, the foremost of which was a promise by Coastal Berry's owners not to block unions, the campaign has been plagued by setbacks.

The UFW organizers struggled to win the trust of workers and faced competition from a rival union backed by company supervisors who had ties to other anti-union growers.

``This has been a long struggle at Coastal Berry,'' UFW spokesman Marc Grossman said Tuesday. ``The strawberry industry wants to stop UFW progress at all costs, and Coastal Berry could be a crucial turning point for the workers statewide.''

Coastal Berry's 1,500 employees in the farming communities of Oxnard, Watsonville and Salinas were voting by secret ballot Tuesday and Wednesday.

Their choices: representation by the UFW; its rival, the Coastal Berry of California Farm Worker Committee; or no union at all.

As the voting began in Watsonville, pickers briefly left oceanside fields laden with fat red strawberries to place their ballots under the close watch of Agricultural Labor Relations Board staffers. About a dozen UFW organizers also watched, from a quarter-mile away.

There was no sign of the Farm Worker Committee, a rival the UFW calls a sham union that doesn't have the workers' interests at heart.

Coastal Berry Co. President Ernie Farley said Wednesday that the company remains neutral on who represents the workers. It just wants an end to the strife created by the seemingly endless labor unrest.