Driscoll's Workers Call for Cross-Border Boycott over Abuses at World's Biggest Berry Distributor
About an hour north of Seattle in Burlington, Washington, berry pickers have been organizing for three years at Sakuma Brothers Farms, one of the farms where Driscoll’s buys berries. Since 2013, some workers launched a series of walkouts, picket lines and lawsuits over alleged labor violations. In 2014, one of their lawsuits went all the way up to the Washington Supreme Court, where they won a unanimous decision that set a precedent ensuring paid rest breaks statewide. The following year, massive protests broke out at Driscoll’s farms down in San QuintÃÂn Valley in Mexico. Since then, Driscoll’s farmworkers have been organizing together on both sides of the border. Democracy Now!’s Laura Gottesdiener spoke to protesting farmworkers in Washington state and went inside the camps where many of them live. She also spoke to Sakuma Brothers Farms CEO Danny Weeden.
