Mushroom workers struggle.

Here in the mushroom capital of the world, farm workers at Kaolin Mushroom Farms, Inc., often report to their jobs as early as 2 A.M. to make sure fresh mushrooms get to the supermarket the same day. Perched atop laders in chilly cinder-block buildings, they stretch and bend their bodies for hours, plucking white button mushrooms with a small knife. Workers are paid by the basket of mushrooms they collect. Kaolin pays $1.15 per ten-pound basket.

Historically low wages, a lack of job security, the physical toll of the work, and a shortage of affordable housing in the area leave farm workers at the bottom of the local economic totem pole. They are hoping that a union will help change what they describe as an arduous and thankless way of life.

The workers voted for union representation in April 1993, but they are still fighting to get their union officially recognized by the state. Kaolin company officials won't recognize the union elections, which they claim were conducted illegally. In the past year, workers and management have exchanged a pile of legal papers and accusations.

Kaolin workers, like most of the region's 10,000 farm workers, are predominantly Mexican. Most migrated illegally. For years, the Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajodores Agricolas, better known by its Spanish acronymn, CATA, had been patiently encouraging workers to organize. The organization gained a reputation among farm workers as a trusted source of help, but workers were reluctant to join.

Then, in February 1993, Ventura Gutierrez, the son of migrant farm workers himself, came to Kennett Square, and was hired by CATA. Gutierrez rallied hundreds of farm workers, including those at Kaolin. He drew attention when he was arrested. He even called for a nationwide boycott of mushrooms, and got other unions involved.

In a matter of months, a community of farm workers, long exploited as cheap labor, had suddenly begun to speak up for their rights.

It was a rainy day on April 1 when 140 workers put down their mushroom-chopping knives and walked out of Kaolin.

Gutierrez's work led to a union election at Kaolin. The vote was 124-to-101 in favor of union representation. The company challenged thirty-eight of these votes. The state labor relations board declared the official tally as 130-to-102. The company appealed, and the case is still pending.

"Getting a group of Mexican farm workers to march in front of one of the biggest mushroom companies was a big deal," says Joe DiStefano, a former CATA organizer. "Of course, having a strike is one thing, getting a contract is another. The bottom line is there is no contract at Kaolin, and it will be a long struggle to get one."

Gutierrez says he is hopeful that the state board will certify the union vote. "It's going to happen slowly but surely," he says. Meanwhile, he has returned to California to work with his farm labor organization, Union Sin Fronteras (Union Without Borders).

"Smart growers know they can pay farm workers miserable wages as long as they treat them with respect and as human beings," says DiStefano. "But there are going to be more strikes and more protests as long as you have people working in such miserable conditions with such little pay."

The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board is expected to render a decision this fall, but the appeals process could drag on for years. Still, Gutierrez is optimistic. "Every ethnic group that has ever worked in the mushroom industry--from the Irish in the early 1900s to the Mexicans in the 1990s--has been discriminated against by growers," says Gutierrez. "Growers have stamped out every union attempt. We want to bust that vicious cycle, and, in part, we feel we've accomplished it. There will be a union among mushroom workers."