KCRA & the Safeway Meat Scandal (7)
After my conversation with Pete, I got on the phone for some research. There was still a chance we might provide full coverage, and a lot more facts needed to be unearthed before we could do a responsible job of it.
I called the United Farmworkers' King, California headquarters. The spokesman they put on the phone gave me a candid admission on a highly pertinent subject: he freely conceded that the United Farmworkers and Interfaith were motivated by more than altruistic concern for the quality of the public's hamburger. The meat charges were linked to an ongoing lettuce war.
The United Farm Workers of California (UFWOC) had recently resumed its picketing of Sacramento's Safeway markets as part of a nationwide campaign. All attempts to talk Safeway into carrying United Farmworkers' lettuce had failed, and they felt it was time for pressure again.
I'd covered an organizational meeting the morning the picketing resumed, and I'd heard a UFWOC spokesman pass on word from headquarters that the new boycott should not be limited to leafleting and carrying signs. It was important to develop issues of general consumer interest, they said. Only with pressure from the general public could a giant like Safeway be forced to come to terms.
