interpretation.......they're gonna try to hold out until we get these......

Even then, they'll probably run a 'skyway' into Bear Mountain.

  I used to work for one of these companies, and I was wondering what happened with this case?  I hope the companies learned how to treat their employees.   Please let me know.     Thank you   jra.

Women report harassment at Grimmway

BY ERIK LOYD, Californian staff writer
e-mail: eloyd@bakersfield.com | Wednesday, May 10 2006 8:35 PM

Last Updated: Wednesday, May 10 2006 8:39 PM

The federal government filed suit Wednesday against Grimmway Farms and a labor contractor on behalf of a group of women who said they were sexually harassed by a male supervisor. One woman said she was fired for speaking out.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Grimmway and Esparza Enterprises Inc., which employed and supplied workers for the grower, ignored the complaints. A pattern of sexual harassment was well known at Grimmway, the largest private employer in Kern County, EEOC said.

The main plaintiff, identified as Ana-Berta Rubio, claimed she and other women were constantly pressured with sexual propositions, demands, comments and physical contact. Rubio said she worked a graveyard shift in sanitation, often alone with the supervisor -- a high-ranking Grimmway manager whom the EEOC declined to name in the lawsuit. Rubio, the only woman named in the suit, claimed he exposed himself as well.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fresno, seeks back pay, lost wages and compensatory damages for Rubio and the other women. No dollar figure was disclosed in the suit.

Jeffrey A. Green, general counsel for Bakersfield-based Grimmway, said the company hadn't received any legal documents as of Wednesday afternoon. In an e-mail statement, he wrote that the company doesn't tolerate sexual harassment and has no record that Rubio "had been subject to sexual harassment until her assignment at Grimmway was terminated."

Green wrote that Rubio was a temporary employee and that Grimmway's records say she was fired for "disruptive behavior." He also wrote that a claim by the EEOC that the two parties attempted to settle out of court was untrue.

Three other women had similar experiences with the supervisor, said William R. Tamayo, EEOC regional attorney in San Francisco. He said that to his knowledge, they no longer work at Grimmway, which employs some 6,000 workers and is recognized as the world leader in carrot production.

A telephone listing for Rubio could not be found Wednesday. Messages to Esparza Enterprises, listed with a Bakersfield address, were not returned.

The EEOC said Rubio was subject to harassment from her first day on the job in July 2003 until she was fired in September 2004. Rubio was finally fired for coming forward with the allegations, said EEOC trial attorney Linda Ordonio-Dixon.

"She was called in and told they didn't have any work for her," Ordonio-Dixon said. "The next day, there was a replacement there."

Ordonio-Dixon said that to her recollection, Rubio had no reprimands in her employee record.

Though United Farm Workers spokesman Marc Grossman knows nothing about Rubio personally or the suit against Grimmway, he said harassment and exploitation in various forms are nothing new to farmworkers, who are largely undocumented, hampered by a language barrier and afraid to rock the boat.

"What makes women farmworkers so vulnerable to sexual harassment is the control over their livelihood that's exercised by foremen, supervisors and labor contractors," Grossman said. "It's an all-too-common practice."

But the EEOC has become much more aggressive about farmworker abuse. In January 2005, for instance, Harris Farms of Coalinga was ordered to pay a farmworker nearly $1 million for sexual harassment, retaliation and termination. That verdict is pending appeal, said EEOC district director Joan Ehrlich.

Grimmway is still grappling with the death of co-founder and President Bob Grimm, who died of a massive heart attack at age 54 in March.

No deal Matt!!!

I'm okay with it being a 4 banger Nanc, as long as it's not a floor banger!

All will start wen the locals stop giving all the parties standing in the way of construction their way, which means not in your lifetime.

However,  should it construction start, there will be so many route changes that the usual roads to nowhere like the west end of 58 will again appear. And when completed the crosstown will be another Garces circle instead of the Highway. In Bakersfield it is impossible to get from here to their without many circuitous routes to lease the local residents in the way of progress.

I bet it won't get underway in '09.  This city procrastinates too much.  Just look at 7th Standard Road.  It looks like they're getting nowhere after what, 2 months, of trying to widen the road from hwy 65 to the 99.  What's worse, they have Industry Parkway Drive (the road my work is on) turned into a dirt road with a detour set up during the day which makes it hard for the diesel trucks to turn onto Industry Parkway.  Also, I want to start calling this Westside Parkway a joke (literally-because its another freeway to nowhere) because they're too afraid to connect it to hwy 99.  They say the state has regulations that would (if the freeway were to connect to 99) that they would have to close interchanges along 99 from like Airport Dr to like White Lane.  (Northwest Voice 9-27-06).  For more of my opinion on our roads, see my blog "Roads department needs an overhaul now."