California: Planting the Seeds of Empire
California is a land of agricultural abundance. The state's three largest valleys -- the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, and the Imperial - are cornucopias from which flow a wide variety of fruits,...
...Del Monte had been exporting to these countries for years, but in the company's own words, "We recognized an overseas market potential far beyond what we could serve simply by exporting U.S...
...1 3 Del Monte was directly affected by the labor strife...
...He said, "I think we made it clear to them [the Teamsters] at8 the very first meeting that if there was to be an organization [in the canneries] we would like to tie in with the Teamsters...
...Del Monte even went into Midwestern farming - in northwestern Illinois alone it leased 17,000 acres...
...For six decades, these agricultural riches have been exploited by Del Monte, enabling it to become one of the world's leading agribusiness corporations...
...3 The rise of fruit farming in California in the 1870's and 1880's contributed mightily to the upheaval occurring in the state's economy and set the stage for the emergence of Del Monte...
...Here Del Monte had two objectives - to develop markets within the countries themselves, and to use them as bases for exporting to the industrialized nations...
...Just as in the 1930s, Del Monte's wage and labor policies set the standard for the industry...
...As a result, the leaders of the local were sacked, but the members still refused to strike break...
...6 Finally, in 1916, the companies consolidated to form Del Monte, legally registering the new enterprise under the name of the California Packing Corporation.* With this merger Del Monte joined the ranks of the large U.S...
...Soon, the Associated Farmers had about 40,000 members across the state, all of whom pledged that in case of any "disturbances," they would report to the local sheriff's office for deputization...
...Initially, in the mid-1930's, most of the unions organizing in the canneries, including the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, worked under the auspices of the American Federation of Labor (AFL...
...In 1920, the company bought the Fancher Ranch, a 4,000 acre spread in the San Joaquin Valley...
...and the union's main leaders were thrown in prison...
...head on...
...Del Monte's interests in California were not neglected in the midst of this national and international expansion...
...After Del Monte settled, the other peach growers followed suit.14 To combat the increased labor militancy, Del Monte and the state growers organized the Associated Farmers of California, Inc...
...One new Del Monte cannery took advantage of cheap labor in three different regions of the world: tuna from the Philippines and Ecuador was loaded on Del Monte ships and processed in Puerto Rican canneries for export to the United States...
...As at its birth, Del Monte remains a California-based and controlled corporation...
...But Del Monte had to expand in spite of these obstacles...
...products...
...As the succeeding articles will show, Del Monte's operations in the Third World have internationalized its conflict with labor, posed new problems for the company in dealing with governments increasingly sensitive to foreign exploitation of their natural resources, and demonstrated the basic inability of agribusiness corporations like Del Monte to deal effectively with the problems of hunger and malnutrition...
...see Africa box) However, by the mid-1950's, further expansion in the U.S...
...Faced with these imperatives, Del Monte focused on two avenues for further growth - foreign markets and diversification.9 AGRO-IMPERIALISM Prior to the late-fifties, Del Monte had gone abroad only in search of special commodities for the U.S...
...In 1956, it contracted with an Italian firm to pack goods with the Del Monte label...
...Department of Agriculture program of in-plant inspection, which enables them to list the USDA grade and insure against unsatisfactory packing conditions, Del Monte chooses not to...
...Fruit farming required irrigation and irrigation meant heavy capital outlays...
...Following a meeting of the Teamsters with J. Paul St...
...While many canned foods state their drained weight on the label, Del Monte only gives the net weight, which includes both water, juice or syrup, and the fruit or vegetable...
...Del Monte cannery in Sacramento, California in the 1920's.6 The relatively low technological base of the canning industry directly affected the companies' labor policies...
...FDA records also contain complaints from consumers who have found rusty hair pins, a dead bird, a corn cob, a whole dead mouse, and wooden sticks in Del Monte cans...
...For nearly a decade Armsby argued with and badgered the firms involved to consolidate...
...9 The drive for special canning fruits in the 1920's also led the company into the ranks of the emerging multinational corporations, when it began growing pineapples in Haiti and the Philippines...
...The workers were granted a pay increase to 25 cents per hour...
...First the company stopped growing white asparagus, which is more labor intensive than the green variety, and then in 1975, Del Monte sold its Union Island ranches and ended asparagus production in California...
...In 1935, the president of the Associated Farmers wrote to Alfred Eames, a vice president of Del Monte, thanking him for recent contributions, and proclaiming: "The dreams of my childhood are coming true - there really is a Santa Claus...
...Del Monte moved into the Western European markets somewhat more cautiously...
...Del Monte, the largest employer of cannery workers, used all available means to repress labor militancy in the canneries just as it had in the fields...
...Thus when the Depression struck and labor unrest spread throughout California's factories and fields, Del Monte more than any other large corporation in the state, had a direct economic stake in busting unions and employing all available means to repress labor militancy...
...By this time, many of the Chinese who had been brought over earlier to build railroads and work the gold mines were without work, and San Francisco and other cities passed racist legislation that barred the Chinese from many urban jobs...
...In addition to this economic imperative, the seasonality of cannery work also affects the work force...
...George N. Armsby, who would later move to New York and become one of Wall Street's leading financiers, proposed a merger of: 1) his own distributing house which served the canneries, the J. K. Armsby Company, 2) the newly formed California Fruit Canners Association, 3) its nearest competitor, the Central California Canneries, and 4) a large dried fruit processing and canning firm, Griffin & Skelley...
...Unlike the Midwestern and Eastern states where family farms predominated, California's fertile lands were owned by a relatively small group of growers who lived in lavish ranch houses and ran modern agricultural enterprises...
...In 1971 a strike broke out in one of the Arab labor camps and Del Monte fired the 70 to 80 workers involved...
...As Fortune magazine noted in 1938, the Associated Farmers of California was "violently anti-union," and "run by the big growers but supported and manned by the little ones who pay dues and wield pick handles and rifles in case of trouble...
...These files were made available to local sheriffs and the state police whenever necessary...
...In addition to Del Monte's quest for a cheap cannery work force, the company's investments in farming also gave it a vested interest in keeping wages low...
...Del Monte also went into trucking, shipping, and international air freight to cut its transport costs...
...Sure, the lawyer for the Processors and Growers Association, the union instructed its members to cross the picket lines...
...In 1969, when the Chicano and Filipino workers there began to demand better wages, Del Monte brought in three hundred Arabs from nearby Stockton to replace the more militant workers...
...In July 1945, the police raided the offices of the CA.W.I.U...
...The organization also had an espionage system and maintained special files in San Francisco on over 1,000 labor organizers...
...Seeking a way to weather these economic shocks, the canning industry, like other sectors of U.S...
...Another major dynamic of the corporation - the quest for international markets - began in the 1950s when the domestic market for canned foods began to stagnate...
...Del Monte canned goods may also be hazardous to your health...
...Undocumented Mexican immigrants were also used and security around the labor camps was tightened to keep out union organizers...
...By 1926, canning facilities in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Florida turned out canned produce ranging from peas and sweet corn to grapefruit and sauerkraut...
...California is very important for me because nowhere else has the upheaval most shamelessly caused by capitalist centralization taken place with such speed...
...With its food chain network concentrated in the Midwestern and Eastern states, A & P provided Del Monte with a marketing system in those areas where its sales were weakest...
...First of all you are financing the Del Monte...
...2 1 In 1945 the Teamsters solidified their hold when the AFL granted them total jurisdiction over the canneries...
...2 7 Thus, Del Monte, like other corporate representatives of monopoly capital, responded to the imperatives of growth by expanding overseas and diversifying domestically...
...Since only the state's larger growers, in alliance with big banks and business interests, had the capital necessary to finance the vast irrigation projects, their role in the development of the region's agriculture increased significantly...
...The organization functioned as a right-wing vigilante group...
...But Del Monte soon found out that the Arabs were not the docile labor force that the company had hoped for...
...REPRESSION IN THE CANNERIES The struggle in the fields was followed by a long and equally vicious struggle to unionize the canneries...
...A former security guard for Del Monte.told NACLA investigators that the ranch supervisors were so worried about "outside agitators" that the guards were even instructed to keep prostitutes out of the labor camps...
...Finally, in the 1960's, they made significant advances under the leadership of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers...
...Thus the new corporation, like many of the other emerging giants of the food processing industry, seized the initiative in the one area where they could outdo the smaller firms - in marketing and brand advertising.' In 1917, the company embarked upon the first national advertising campaign ever undertaken by a fruit canning company...
...1 6 Del Monte was a major force behind this new organization...
...Since agriculture required large capital outlays that few homesteaders or family farmers could make, the estates fell into the hands of land speculators and large-scale farming interests...
...Del Monte's plants in Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil produced mainly for these sectors of the population...
...2 0 These tactics succeeded in undermining the more militant unions, and the Teamsters, under the auspices of the AFL, became the major union representing the canneries in California...
...market...
...agribusiness...
...1 0 Major innovations in canning have been few and far between, and the basic technology that goes into producing a can of peaches today is little different from that employed in 1916...
...In 1899, eleven companies merged to form the largest canning firm in the world, the California Fruit Canners Association (CFCA).s In this era of trusts and corporate mergers, some San Francisco-based capitalists pushed for an even greater consolidation of the California canning industry...
...The next year Del Monte purchased Service Systems Corp., a supplier of meals to institutions around the country, which also runs a chain of vending machines and provides private security police for multinational firms...
...As a vice-president of the company said, "In industry you can't get into a static situation - you've got to grow...
...Market expansion at the expense of competitors was virtually impossible...
...THE AGRICULTURAL SETTING At the time of Del Monte's birth, in 1916, the state's countryside was dominated by extremes of wealth and poverty...
...Years later, the lawyer for the Processors and Growers Association, St...
...Basically, a firm with one cannery and a hundred workers could turn out a can of peaches as cheaply as Del Monte...
...the successor of the Processors and Growers Association), the organization that represents the state's largest canners in their contract negotiations with organized labor...
...To diversify its line of canned goods, Del Monte purchased or set up plants across the country...
...The company's sales almost doubled - from $62 million in 1941 to $111 million in 1945...
...Its lands had already been carved up into large estates under its previous, settlers, the Spaniards and the Mexicans...
...There, Del Monte operated one of California's largest asparagus farms, employing hundreds of Filipinos and Hindu workers to harvest the delicate asparagus shoots for its canneries...
...s Stockades for holding striking workers were built with the aid of the Associated Farmers...
...Over the years, outlays for research by leading canners such as Del Monte, Libby, McNeill & Libby, Green Giant, and Stokley-Van Camp have been minimal...
...When a wave of strikes erupted in the canneries in 1937, the processors were ready...
...Although the new company's principal brand name was Del Monte, it was known as the California Packing Corporation until 1967 when it officially became Del Monte...
...Sure, admitted that the association had collaborated with the Teamster union to insure its victory over the more progressive unions...
...Department of Agriculture study, you are likely to get more water and less vegetable in a Del Monte can than most other brands...
...The state's three largest valleys -- the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, and the Imperial - are cornucopias from which flow a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and grains...
...Next Del Monte began selling frozen "culinary delights" by acquiring O'Brien, Spotomo, Mitchell, a firm that caters to airlines, restaurants and hotels...
...By 1933, this labor strife sent shockwaves through the ranks of California's agribusiness interests, as 31 major strikes occurred affecting 48,000 workers, four-fifths of whom were led by the C.A.WI.U...
...Thus Del Monte still plays a major role in fighting to hold down wages in California canneries...
...THE HOME FRONT While expanding its world-wide operations, Del Monte confronted a new challenge in California...
...The per capita consumption of canned goods showed signs of leveling off, with a growth rate of less than half a percent per year...
...The development of new markets is central to the survival of any big corporation, and Del Monte, like other large firms under monopoly capitalism, must constantly expand or else it stagnates and declines as investors turn to more dynamic enterprises for investment outlets...
...FINANCING VIGILANTES The impact of the Depression on agricultural workers was devastating...
...They demanded that the prevailing wage of 15-171h cents per hour be increased to 30 cents...
...The company's top 44 executives received $5 million, for an average remuneration of $113,000...
...For simplicity's sake, we will use the name Del Monte to refer to the company.5 EARLY EXPANSION Although Del Monte was the biggest canning corporation in the world, its large volume did not give it significant per unit cost advantages over its smaller competitors...
...Del Monte gave in to the strikers because its peach canneries as well as its farms were tied up by the strike...
...Other peach farm workers in the region also went on strike...
...market such as pineapples and sardines...
...It expanded its pineapple plantations in the Philippines and then, in 1954, due to the dwindling catch of sardines off California's coast, Del Monte began fishing for sardines in Walvis Bay in South West Africa...
...Like the agricultural workers, the cannery employees came largely from the ranks of California's immigrant labor pool...
...As one worker said, "we would have to starve working, so we decided to starve striking...
...market was limited...
...manufacturing, began to consolidate...
...The drive began in 1966 with the purchase of Granny Goose, a major producer of potato chips and snack foods in California...
...Wages were low, and employment seasonal, making the lot of the cannery workers among the worst of any industrial workers in the state...
...Its first move was to found the California Processors and Growers Association, an organization in which all the state canners formed a united front against the cannery workers...
...seriously injured, and one striker was "riddled with buckshot from his mouth to his abdomen...
...The ranch soon became the world's largest peach orchard and supplied one-fourth to one-third of the peaches that were marketed under the Del Monte label...
...Statistics bore out Del Monte's claim: by 1973, slightly more than half its sales came from domestic canning, while its snack foods, institutional food services and fresh produce operations accounted for 25 percent of sales, and foreign investments for another 25 percent...
...It served as the chief fund raiser for Associated Farmers, soliciting contributions from corporations such as Standard Oil of California and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E...
...According to a US...
...But this imperialist solution, while enabling Del Monte to surmount the limits of the domestic market, has created new contradictions for the corporation...
...According to a 1973 report, twice in the previous five years the FDA seized Del Monte shipments found to be packed under unsanitary conditions...
...Though the militancy generated by the United Farm Workers in the fields has spilled back into the canneries (see box), Del Monte at present has no intention of moving its California canneries abroad...
...By the 1930's, the company owned 21,500 acres of choice California land and employed thousands of field workers at subsistence wages...
...Del Monte also purchased 9,000 acres on Union Island in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river delta...
...market for special delicacies, like pineapples and sardines, led the company to extend its foreign operations...
...By the early 1930's there were at least 250,000 agricultural workers in the state, many of whom could not find even seasonal work once the Depression set in...
...The saga of the Chinese was repeated many times by other immigrant groups in subsequent decades: a cheap, migrant labor force would be lured into the fields during periods of agricultural expansion, only to be driven out and labeled "undesirable" whenever a downturn occurred in the business cycle...
...It expanded in Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries through the acquisition in 1958 of a canning firm in England, and in 1960, the South African Preserving Co...
...Del Monte led the way in transforming the canning industry from a highly competitive sector with many small firms into an industry dominated by a handful of corporations...
...a new union with close ties to the Communist Party...
...In August, 1933, at the height of the peach harvest, 2,000 pickers under the leadership of the C.A.W.I.U...
...The struggle to organize the cannery workers is interwoven with the conflict that developed among US...
...The company was older than Del Monte itself, dating back to a merger of Canadian canning companies in 1903...
...What are you really getting for that 14 percent more you pay...
...The canneries seek out the cheapest labor pool, usually drawing from the ranks of Third World immigrants, national minorities, and women...
...In recent years, Del Monte has been paying $15 million annually in advertising campaigns, one of the highest ad budgets in the food industry...
...In a 1969 study, the Department of Agriculture found that in six out of eleven canned items, Del Monte products had the lowest drained weight of all brands compared...
...government purchased up to 70 percent of the company's canned goods for the Army, Navy, and Allied governments...
...But continued agitation eventually forced Del Monte to raise wages and improve working conditions on Union Island.2a Confronted with worker militancy and the drive for collective bargaining throughout the state, Del Monte began to move its asparagus operations to Mexico...
...To augment production in its plants and fields, Del Monte, in its own words, used "Mexican nationals, Jamaicans, prisoners of war, and thousands of American soldiers and sailors who worked during furloughs or on special passes...
...The fresh fruit markets also drew the company's attention: it began to import bananas in 1968 and increased its imports of fresh pineapples from Hawaii and the Philippines...
...The new orchards also needed a large, seasonal body of laborers, and the insatiable quest of California agribusiness for a cheap exploitable pool of labor began with fruit farming in the late nineteenth century...
...In Stockton, California, the cannery owners called upon the Associated Farmers to put together an army of fifteen hundred deputized vigilantes who violently repressed the cannery strikers with tear-gas and arms...
...MONOPOLIZING THE CANNING INDUSTRY The growth of capitalist agriculture in California led to the emergence of another factor in modem agribusiness - the canning industry...
...Secondly you are helping support some of the highest paid executives in the corporate world...
...9 In San Francisco and Oakland, the processors relied more heavily on the Teamsters to do their dirty work...
...To till the land, the growers employed a huge army of itinerant field workers drawn from the four corners of the globe...
...Now, however, the company turned to foreign consumer markets, especially those of the Western industrialized nations...
...The company's holdings extended beyond the borders of California: of its sixty-one plants, four were in Washington, three in Oregon, one in Idaho, and one in Hawaii...
...corporations that were opening up the era of monopoly capitalism...
...By 1972, the company advertised in at least twenty-five countries, using television, radio, newspapers and billboards to alter the eating habits and diets of millions of people.6 For some countries, the impact has been disastrous: people have been persuaded to buy canned goods, even though the same fruits or vegetables are often readily available fresh at a fraction of the cost...
...Today, all of Del Monte's white asparagus is grown in Mexico, where it is packed and shipped abroad for sale...
...The labor-intensiveness of canning plus the seasonal nature of agricultural production made Del Monte a leading force in repressing and manipulating labor organizations...
...16 In 1934, the growers and their allies confronted the farm workers and the C.A.W.I.U...
...The new company also owned 70 percent of Alaska Packers, a large salmon fishing and canning operation...
...The growers took full advantage of the labor glut, driving wages down to all-time lows...
...The company solidified its productive position throughout the United States, and by 1950 it owned major canning and processing facilities in fourteen states...
...The canneries only operate when crops are being harvested, and thus in most areas 80 to 90 percent of the cannery workers are employed for only four to six months of the year...
...As the nation's leading agricultural state, California sends its produce to markets around the world...
...A slick, sophisticated advertising campaign, rather than technological or nutritional innovations, remained the cutting edge for breaking into new markets...
...2 At the same time, food processing firms such as Armour, Heinz, Pillsbury, and Swift were busy developing markets for processed agricultural goods...
...The Association was instrumental in getting the Teamsters and the AFL to collaborate in undermining the more militant union locals...
...This article will trace the evolution of Del Monte in California, and analyze some of the forces of monopoly capital that have shaped the corporation's development...
...The company's lead bank is the Bank of California...
...Pillsbury, Madison's clients include the Bank of California and the top two San Francisco-based companies, Standard Oil of California and Pacific Tele- phone, all of which (along with Pillsbury, Madison) are represented on Del Monte's board of directors...
...The post war years brought a new wave of prosperity, as consumers rushed to purchase canned convenience foods that had been scarce at home during the war...
...Both the seasonality of cannery work and the drive of the canning companies to hold down wages explains why the cannery workers in California and other parts of the world are among the worst paid and most exploited group of workers employed by any sector of monopoly capital...
...1 2 As agricultural conditions worsened, the union became more militant...
...Of the 300 picketers attacked, fifty were * In late 1937, the progressive locals formed the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), an affiliate of the CIO...
...Although 114 food processors participate in a voluntary U.S...
...Finally, Dave Beck, the fast-rising national Teamster leader, came from Seattle, promised large pay increases to the local's members, and persuaded them to cross the picket lines at the Del Monte plant...
...The state's farm workers, who had been brutally repressed in the 1930's, continued to push for unionization in succeeding decades...
...By 1967, it owned facilities in twenty countries and international sales were growing three times as fast as domestic sales...
...The final push for the merger came from the Bank of California...
...According to a U.S...
...With its corporate headquarters in San Francisco, it is closely tied to the city's major business and financial institutions.* At the same time, its role in the state's agribusiness power structure, plus its diversification into new areas, makes the corporation one of the dominant business interests in California...
...Dean Witter, the largest west coast brokerage house, is the Del Monte investment banker, while Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro, San Francisco's leading law firm, is the company's legal counsel...
...Stimulated by the demand for California fruit, a number of small canneries and dried fruit processing firms emerged in the late 1870's and 1880's...
...economy, became more capital-intensive...
...Canning the Consumer When you buy that Del Monte can with the word "quality" on it, you are paying an average of 14 percent more for the Del Monte brand than for other canned labels on the shelf...
...Then, several years later, Del Monte set up a large cannery in Italy's Po Valley, thereby giving the company a solid base for selling in the European Common Market...
...Strikes were violently broken by the growers, and the state government threw its weight behind the anti-union drive...
...Del Monte plants that had been running at half their capacity in the 1930's, strained at their productive limits as the U.S...
...In exchange for paying part of the advertising costs and granting special wholesale price discounts, A & P pushed the Del Monte brand name in its regional and local advertising campaigns...
...To finance the consolidation he arranged for Wall Street to put up $16 million...
...unions for control over the labor movement...
...Aside from being a cheap source of labor, the Chinese were also highly skilled workers, since many had been involved in agriculture in China...
...to look to the new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) for support...
...Using the expertise of McCann Erickson, one of the new advertising agencies that played an important role in developing national consumer tastes, Del Monte first placed ads in the Saturday Evening Post and then in a number of the leading women's magazines.s From the beginning Del Monte boasted that its brand name was synonymous with "quality" and a modem style of living...
...The other fruit and vegetable canning leaders, like Libby, McNeill & Libby and Stokely-Van Camp, were firmly established and Del Monte would have had a difficult time taking over a significant portion of their sales...
...In the 1960's, Del Monte moved into Third World nations with its canneries...
...He also declared that "we had very definite ideas about the kind and shape of union we would like to deal through," and that the Teamsters fit those needs...
...Del Monte of course sided with the California agribusiness interests that were trying to destroy the new union movement...
...DEL MONTE'S LABOR IMPERATIVES The canning industry was different from most sectors of monopoly capital in that it did not rely heavily on major technological advances...
...The company may have good reason not to want its plants inspected...
...But when the world-wide depression of the 1890's struck, causing widespread unemployment in California's cities and fields, a furor of anti-Chinese violence errupted and the Chinese were driven from the agricultural valleys of California...
...Worried about the viability of some of the canning companies it had helped finance, the Bank used its clout to force the more reluctant firms to approve the merger...
...What are these executives delivering to your table for that $5 million...
...walked off the job at Del Monte's Fancher Ranch...
...Companies headed by John Deere and Cyrus McCormick began manufacturing farm equipment, and the farmers who wanted to remain competitive had to use these new labor-saving implements to increase their output and extend the acreage they cultivated...
...4 Here was the ideal labor force for the growers...
...Furthermore, under monopoly capitalism, the major firms in a given industry usually refrain from price wars or other severe forms of economic competition which could lead to the destruction of one or more of the leading corporations and adversely affect the entire industry...
...Tariff concessions enjoyed by these countries under the terms of the Latin American Free Trade Association enable Del Monte to cater to the elites of neighboring countries...
...But for a global corporation like Del Monte, the tactics of marketing had changed little since the 1910's and 1920's...
...For years Del Monte has been engaging in this premium pricing practice...
...2 In 1956, Del Monte purchased majority control of Canadian Canners, Canada's largest canner, with 49 plants and annual sales of $40 million...
...However, their ranks were soon thinned out by the downturn of the business cycle in the 1890's...
...The cannery workers voted against this change, but the Teamsters worked with the Processors and Growers Association to reverse this vote by ignoring court orders, by bringing systematic pressure to bear on government la- bor mediators, and finally, by conducting new, rigged elections.' The Teamsters won complete control of the canneries, and in succeeding decades they paid off their debt to the cannery owners by containing labor militancy and keeping wage increases to a minimum...
...By the early 1970's, Del Monte boasted that it was not merely a canning company, but a diversified corporation engaged in the "world-wide business of feeding people...
...By 1937, there were two competing labor camps7 California Field Workers on Strike in the 1930's active in the California canneries - one led by the state AFL office which worked closely with the Teamsters, and the other led by local labor councils and supported by the CIO and ILWU.*ls In response to cannery organizing, Del Monte adopted tactics similar to the ones used against the agricultural workers...
...Del Monte's growth in foreign markets was impressive...
...With low labor costs, countries like Kenya (see Africa box) became havens for locating canneries whose production was destined almost exclusively for the developed countries...
...In the latter part of the nineteenth century, agriculture, like other sectors of the U.S...
...The industry is labor intensive, and since it is unable to cut costs by developing labor-saving machinery, the canning companies strive desperately to hold down the costs of labor...
...California was an ideal setting for the rapid growth of agribusiness...
...In 1973, Del Monte chairman, Alfred Eames Jr., received $438,000, the highest remuneration received by any executive among the major food corporations...
...Confronted by the naked power of the growers, the farm workers organization was crushed and the great wave of strikes came to an end...
...California agriculture in 1916 was driven by the new forces shaping American capitalism...
...But the craft union orientation and conservative policies of the AFL drove the more progressive members (including many who had belonged to the now defunct C.A.W.I.U...
...Senate report, Del Monte directly or indirectly raised 41 percent of the money received by the Associated Farmers from 1934 to 1939...
...Already in 1880, Karl Marx, in a letter to an American correspondent, noted the tendencies at work: I should be very much pleased if you could find me something good (meaty) on economic conditions in California...
...See Box p. 11) THE DYNAMICS OF EXPANSION For Del Monte, and monopoly capital in general, World War II ended the social and economic unrest of the Depression years and ushered in a new era of prosperity...
...Due to these desperate conditions, a statewide campaign to organize agricultural workers was launched in 1930 by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (C.A.W.I.U...
...Del Monte's drive to develop the U.S...
...Del Monte's six decades of expansion illustrate many of the forces of monopoly capital that have shaped U.S...
...Within the Third World countries themselves, Del Monte's strategy called for tapping the relatively limited markets presented by the middle and upper classes...
...Every year droves of migrants born in Japan, China, Mexico, India, Portugal and Armenia roamed from valley to valley in search of agricultural work that paid subsistence wages...
...In the 1870's the Chinese were the first field workers brought into the orchards...
...It is the major power in California Processors, Inc...
...advertising program that sold you the can...
...A key battle erupted in Del Monte's Oakland plant where the Teamster local refused to obey the strike-breaking orders...
...Their ranks had been swelled in the previous decade by immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines, and by white workers who came to California as the "new land of opportunity," only to wind up as field hands...
...In 1947, Del Monte profits were up more than 300 percent over previous years...
...The growers and police initially offered stiff resistance with newspapers reporting that deputies and ranch guards were armed with shotguns and rifles...
...Fresh produce operations can be moved to countries like Mexico, but high tariffs on imported canned goods make it economically iinfeasible for Del Monte to rely on canneries abroad to service the large U.S...
...started canning Del Monte goods for both the Union of South Africa, and European markets...
...These changes were accompanied by greater and greater capital investments, and meant that agriculture 34 Del Monte advertising in Vermont in 1920's was fast becoming big business...
...To expand its national market, Del Monte linked up with the largest food chain in the country, the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A & P...
...On its Union Island asparagus ranch, Del Monte used several different tactics against the farm workers...
...ulie Reynolds Source: Agribusiness Accountability Project10 DOMESTIC DIVERSIFICATION By the mid-sixties, Del Monte was firmly established in foreign markets and, still seeking new areas for growth, moved to diversify its domestic operations...
Vol. 10 • September 1976 • No. 7
