One of the North Bay’s largest vineyard management companies, Geyserville-based Redwood Empire, has been forced to shell out $33,548 in lost wages to seven farmworkers after state ag regulators found evidence that Redwood bosses “manipulated internal hiring procedures to exclude workers who participated” in a giant rally and march through central Healdsburg last summer, where they demanded better pay, according to the North Bay Business Journal and KQED. The Santa Rosa org that organized the march and helped participants fight back against their employer, North Bay Jobs With Justice, is calling it a “huge victory” for the local labor rights movement. Here’s what the org claims happened:
Last July, Jose Alejandro Cuevas marched with over 600 farmworkers and community members with NBJwJ through downtown Healdsburg amidst an ongoing fight by Sonoma County farmworkers to win better industry wage standards: $25/hour. At the time, Alejandro was working at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management as were other attendees of the Healdsburg march that temporarily shut down the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Less than a month later, Redwood Empire had erased Alejandro and five other co-workers’ names from the grape harvest signup sheet.
“It was a humiliation,” said Alejandro.
In an official complaint, the [California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, or ALRB] found reasonable cause that Redwood Empire management knew of employee involvement in the march and manipulated internal hiring processes to exclude those workers from the 2024 harvest. Moreover, in a clear violation of workers’ rights under the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, management required all workers to sign a contract that said workers would be “immediately fired” if they asked for a raise.
Redwood Empire oversees some 2,200 vineyards that sell grapes to such brands as Ramey Wine Cellars, Silver Oak and Kendall-Jackson Wine Estate & Gardens.
In the settlement, President of Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, Kevin Barr, agreed to rescind the contract language as well as pay $33,548 to the seven workers involved in the case. Additionally, the company agreed to offer reinstatement as well as 2025 harvest work to those workers.
When I spoke to North Bay Jobs With Justice spokesperson Davida Sotelo Escobedo over the phone before last week’s press conference announcing this win in the Healdsburg plaza, she stressed the significance of Redwood agreeing to reinstate the workers, instead of just paying out the settlement and washing its hands of them. Like so, this outcome is more than just a victory for the farmworkers involved, she said — it’s an important precedent in an industry where the folks doing the hardest work often get the short end of the stick. Big celebratory vibes flooded the plaza last Wednesday, where dozens of workers and their supporters showed up for the press conference with signs and chants and other rally gear. Through the eyes of a KQED reporter:
Surrounded by elegant tasting rooms and high-end hotels, farmworkers and labor organizers rallied Wednesday in Healdsburg — the center of Sonoma County’s multimillion-dollar wine industry — to announce a settlement with Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, a Geyserville-based company.
“¿Tienen miedo? ¡No! ¿Están cansados! ¡No!” workers chanted in Spanish, which translates to “Are you afraid? No! Are you tired? No!” …
“We all have the right to be able to organize with our coworkers to ask for better working conditions and not be retaliated against,” said Yesenia De Luna, ALRB’s regional director. “In this case, workers were going to protests and marches asking for better wages. That’s a working condition.”
Here’s the settlement in full. Once it was finalized, the executive director of the North Bay Labor Council, Jack Buckhorn, told the Business Journal that he was actually “a little surprised” that Redwood Empire didn’t fight the accusations harder. “The only reason we see employers settling is if there’s evidence they made these threats,” he said. “Rarely does it come out in a worker’s best interest.”
