Outside Rodney Strong Vineyards in Healdsburg on Saturday, more than 150 production workers and labor advocates marched, chanted and danced with blue-and-white signs to the sound of a Sinaloan brass band. The workers, pacing in front of rows of grape vines during the winery’s annual summer garden party, announced their intent to unionize.
Rodney Strong workers said they are pursuing union representation over concerns about compensation, the rising cost of living and recent layoffs amid the wine industry crisis and declining rates of U.S. alcohol consumption. Fifty staff members, including in bottling, warehouse and other production departments, signed a petition on May 29 requesting a unionization agreement with company management.
It is one of the few large-scale efforts to unionize wine industry workers in more than four decades…