‘Still can’t believe it.’ Thousands of farmworkers jobless after Fresno fruit giant bankruptcy

When Lucy Rodríguez heard about the bankruptcy of Prima Wawona, one of the largest producers and packers of tree fruit in California, her concern was not so much for herself but for all the seasonal workers in the fields and the packing houses, since many of them were counting on May to return to work for the company and have that income.

“Because there were a lot of people and then, since we had just opened the fourth (packing) line this year, almost 200 more people had already been added to the company and there were already many of us,” said Rodríguez, 27.

Workers, who voted down a unionization effort by the United Farm Workers, have long touted the company’s pay and benefits. Many of them started with Gerawan Farming before it merged with Wawona Packing to form Prima Wawona.

Because of the bankruptcy the Fresno County fruit company is preparing to sell 16,000 acres of prime farmland.

A company document of regular full-time positions shows there are 5,411 employees. Of those, 3,743 are seasonal employees. All will be out of a job by mid-March.

The company operated packing plants in Reedley and Cutler and shipped millions of cases of peaches, plums, and nectarines across the country and around the world.

Rodríguez worked at the Cutler plant for two years.

Prima Wawona, managed by its new owners, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Oct. 13, 2023, with more than $600 million in debt.

“The company is a big part of our life because it gives us work for a long time and we get a lot of hours,” said Rodríguez, who lives in Orange Cove.

Rodríguez said she was an operator in the quality control area and reported to the person in charge of packing, the stewards, and the supervisors if something was going wrong with the fruit in that area.

For Rodríguez, working at Prima Wawona “is almost like being in a family, the stewards and supervisors worked us well and we all worked well and everything always went as it should.”

“I liked that the company always ran well and they always tried to do the most they could for the people,” Rodríguez said. “They treated us very well. They provided everything we needed most of the time for us to work in an environment well.”

Rodríguez said that while she hasn’t decided if he will seek another job elsewhere, she already has something in mind in case she needs it.

“Maybe I’m going to wait to see what happens with the company, but I’m still more or less looking,” Rodríguez said, adding that she will wait to see what happens, whether they do something else again with the same company space or see what happens with the bankruptcy case.

“Thank you for the opportunity to put food on our table”

Rodríguez shared the news of the company’s bankruptcy in a Jan. 13 Facebook post, where she thanked all the mayordomas and supervisors and especially the workers.

“Thank you for the opportunity to put food on our table and all that you gave us. You will be missed. Thanks to the amarradores and everyone,” Rodríguez wrote in the post, which received several comments.

Among the comments was that of Yoana Andrade: “It is true how sad so many families depend on this work”.

And Alejandra Díaz: “I still can’t believe it.”

Rodríguez’s sister, Norberta Martínez Rodríguez, worked for many years with the company in the fruit fields along with her late husband.

“Unfortunately, companies go bankrupt because people only think about their profit. They don’t think that we all need the work, not just me. How we, who are always in the field, need it,” said Martínez Rodríguez, who at 66 years of age still works.

Martínez Rodríguez said she has no complaints about working for that company since the stewards always treated them well all the time.

“They never discriminated against us, they paid us well. We never had any problems,” Martínez Rodríguez said.

“I have concerns because there are many people like my sister Lucy who work there,” said Martínez Rodríguez. “I am worried about the people, that thousands of people worked and we are all worried about the job. That it’s not easy to get a job somewhere else.”

Like her sister, Martínez Rodríguez does not lose hope that the company will continue.

“Look, we are waiting to see what happens. Let’s see if other people buy it, right? Or to see what happens. Let them see us back there,” said Martínez Rodríguez.

“We are all in this country to work and all of us who are there, right now we who are worried are purely working people,” she said.

This story was originally published January 26, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "‘Still can’t believe it.’ Thousands of farmworkers jobless after Fresno fruit giant bankruptcy."