Impact of California Mushroom Farm’s closing spreads to community, state and nation [Ventura County Star, Calif.]

Sept. 28--Juan Amaro and Jacinto Ortiz never thought they would need food donations, or to fill out unemployment claims or suggestions of where to look for a job.

But Thursday afternoon, they were at the United Farm Workers union office in Oxnard, helping to fill 150 bags of food for themselves and hundreds of others who used to work at the California Mushroom Farm.

"I never had to seek help," Ortiz said through a translator. He and his wife, Maria, worked at the farm, and own a home in Oxnard where they've raised three children. "We lived decently."

When on Sept. 16 the 76-year-old Ventura business closed its doors for good, 415 people lost their jobs. Those jobs weren't typical, seasonal farm work but full-time with medical benefits, sick days and vacation time.

The impact has spread its tendrils through the community, the state and the country.

The UFW's Oxnard office has turned into a temporary relief agency, accepting and distributing donations, and helping those laid off fill out unemployment claims. The nation's $1 billion mushroom industry lost one of its bigger producers, forcing growers to ship product here from across the country to make up for the loss.

HISTORY

For most of its existence, the California Mushroom Farm Inc., which at its zenith was the Golden State's second largest, was fraught with one business woe or another: bankruptcy, multiple owners, contentious labor union relations, a worker strike, production problems, a boycott, a fire.

But the doors never closed, somehow, and employees felt they would always have a job.

Especially after new owners in late 2004 bought the business from PictSweet Mushroom Farms, a division of United Foods Inc. Earlier that year, and after a 17-year dispute, PictSweet and the UFW agreed to their first labor contract since 1987.

The landmark contract eased the friction between the farm and the union, and granted the employees employer-paid health care insurance, raises, paid holidays and vacations, guaranteed seniority and other protections.

By 2011, Chuck Ciarrocchi and his brother James, who owned the business with four other investors, had made an atmosphere employees said was just, fair and comfortable. They also had resolved past production issues to bring the plant to its maximum operating capacity, selling 25 to 26 million pounds of brown and white mushrooms that year.

Until Labor Day, when Amaro said the owners told them the business would end operations.

"It was a very abrupt stop, and a big surprise," Amaro said. "For the first few days, we were extremely sad."

Chuck Ciarrocchi said at the time that operations were suspended while their bank negotiated issues with equity investors.

He said a large customer didn't pay its bills and that the owners had been dealing with the situation for four months. Chuck Ciarrocchi wouldn't say what the bank had done that halted operations, but that they wanted "to fix this and save the jobs."

California Mushroom Farm was in "good standing" for taxes at the closing, according to public records, and it hasn't filed for bankruptcy protection. It had about $11 million in two revolving lines of credit with Wilmington Trust of Pennsylvania in Villanova, Pa.

EMPLOYEE IMPACT

In the low-pay and seasonal world of agriculture harvesting, the jobs at the California Mushroom Farm were middle class jobs, said Roman Pinal, interim regional director of the UFW's Oxnard office.

"There were over 400 people who had medical benefits, pensions, seniority and paid vacation," Pinal said. "Your birthday was a holiday at this farm. It was as good as it gets."

Even now, as the employees recoil from their losses, the owners are paying vacation time, bonus pay and pensions that employees are owed, Pinal said. It's unlikely they will find that at other farms, he added.

Amaro, 57, of Oxnard, worked at the Ventura plant for 38 years picking mushrooms. Over the years, other job offers came along but he chose to stay there.

"It was a very fair place," Amaro said, with Pinal translating. "The system was very favorable and the workers there -- they felt like family."

Since the plant's closing, Amaro has been looking for a new job. The packing houses aren't hiring now, he said.

He may have to go back to picking tomatoes or peppers.

Amaro said the biggest impact has been that he's used to working every day and now he isn't.

"It's very emotional to lose your job," he said. "It's not an easy thing."

Ortiz also worked at the farm for 38 years, and still has two children at home. At 64, he's job-hunting again.

"It's going to be very difficult when you're as old as me," Ortiz said. "Not as many people want to give you work."

INDUSTRY IMPACT

Up in Watsonville. Monterey Mushrooms Inc. is already feeling the pinch from the Ventura mushroom farm's closure.

Vice President Joe Caldwell, who also represents California for the national Mushroom Council in San Jose, said the plant has been a "very key part" of the industry and the dominant facility in Southern California, shipping heavily into that part of the state, Arizona and Nevada.

"It is a big loss for the industry, not just in California but nationally," Caldwell said. Monterey Mushrooms farms in California can't fill the gap left by the farm in the western region, Caldwell said, so his East Coast farms have begun shipping product here, and will probably have to send 10 million pounds each year.

Growers in Pennsylvania will supplement any gaps in supply, he said.

The Ventura facility closure also impacts an industry that has recently lost "major" growers, Caldwell said, in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Florida and Colorado. He cited increasing costs of labor, raw materials and energy, while the price per pound has stayed flat for 15 years.

When the California Mushroom Farm was up for sale in previous years, Monterey Mushrooms looked into buying it, as did others, and may yet again, Caldwell said. But now it's an old facility that would need upgrades.

But the largest impact of the farm's closure ultimately is on the employees and their families, he said.

"Throughout the mushroom industry, businesses are made up of long-term employees," Caldwell said, "multiple generations working on mushroom farms. It's part of the nature of the business."

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