Boston UFW Office Announces Step-up Of Picketing Plans

The United Farm Workers Union plans to step-up Boston boycott operations, UFW organizers in the Boston area said yesterday.

Robert Everitt, one of the top organizers in the area, said the intensive campaign will seek to increase picket line numbers at all Star Market stores, as well as induce a public boycott of Sunmaid raisins and Sunsweet dried fruits.

Everitt said the step-up is a response to efforts by farm-owner lobbyists, who recently blocked a renewal of funds for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which had been overseeing union elections on California farms.

Everitt said that the Star Market chain had been the first in the Boston area to sell non-union grapes and lettuce, and that the Sunmaid/Sunsweet cooperative had led the farm-owner lobbyists in cutting off the renewal of revenues for the agricultural board.

He said UFW sympathizers at several local colleges, including Harvard, Brandeis, MIT, and Wellesley, are presently trying to establish strong student support groups on campus, in conjunction with the increased UFW efforts in the Boston area.

Bancroft Poor '78, spokesman for the Harvard-Radcliffe Farm Workers Support Committee, said that his group is still not certain of the best way to reach the H-R community, but that mass leafletting had yielded some positive results.