The Picketing, Limited, Will Continue

The United Farm Workers got what they wanted this week in the Cambridge-area battle over Gallo wine sales: a court-approved settlement that allows them to continue picketing local stores that sell Gallo wines.

It seems clear that C. Pappas and the Harvard Provision Company, who had filed suit against the UFW and the Harvard Boycott Support Committee, must have realized that their efforts to stop the groups' picketing would never succeed.

The UFW supporters, also, were willing to make concessions before the case came to trial--most importantly, limiting to six the number of people who could picket at one time.

So both sides got together last week and hammered out a compromise that a three-judge panel approved, dismissing the case.

Still, the UFW supporters seem to have come out slightly ahead. Despite the limit on the number of pickets, they can still demonstrate outside stores that sell Gallo at any time, for as long as they want--so they can still pressure stores like the Harvard Pro to join the Gallo boycott.

Because the judges will not hear the case, both sides avoided a judgement on the validity of their claims, both the winesellers' that the picketing was illegal, and the UFW's that the stores were obstructing picketers.

So the UFW will keep picketing, and the stores will keep selling Gallo for the time being. And the UFW has also opened a new line of attack: asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the validity of Gallo's advertising claims.