STORIES FROM THE PAST

50 years ago

CALEXICO — Farm workers may not be denied unemployment benefits for refusing to perform unfamiliar forms of stoop labor, according to a decision handed down by J.H. Kahn, California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board referee.

The decision, in effect, means an unemployed worker trained in one skill may not be forced to take work and the subsequent pay cut in an area requiring a lesser skill and is entitled to receive unemployment benefits until a job becomes available in his profession.

California Rural Legal Assistance attorney Fred Altshuler, who represented the worker, called the decision “an important precedent.”

“Individuals may now do seasonal farm labor without being compelled to spend the rest of their lives as a farm worker,” he said. “The decision should aid young farm workers to learn new trades and escape from a life in the fields.”

The case in question involved a local worker who came to the Valley in October to harvest lettuce and was referred to thinning work by the State Farm Labor Office in Calexico. He refused the referral, where upon the El Centro office of the state Department of Humane Resources cut off his unemployment benefits. In his decision, Kahn pointed out that the worker had never previously done thinning work and had always earned a substantially higher wage than was paid for thinning.

The worker, a veteran of 13 years in agricultural work, had earned $2.89 hourly at a Sacramento cannery prior to coming here, $30 a day piece work for nine hours of lettuce work and $20 daily for five hours topping onions.

“The claimant ... has worked ... in agricultural employment which has paid him ... almost $3 to $4 an hour,” Kahn said.

“He refused to consider work paying $1.65 an hour both because of the wage and the nature of the work.

“He was warranted in refusing to consider hoeing and thinning work since it was of a considerably lesser skill than that which enables him to earn his present rate of pay,” he added.

40 years ago

To Lucky, the barkeep at the old Glamis Store, there were so many off-road vehicles running up and down Competition Hill at night this weekend, “it looked like Thanksgiving in the dunes; all those lights.”

To the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Land Management rangers and Gold Cross paramedics, it was no holiday. Law enforcement agencies reported numerous accidents and disturbances as thousands crammed the desert for the Washington weekend holiday. “And there wasn’t even a full moon,” Sheriff Oren Fox observed.

The rain didn’t slow down the capacity crowd, it just made the vehicles go faster, Lucky explained. “And anything with wheels took to the packed sand.”

In addition to the lengthy weekend, crowds were attracted by the running of the Molly Mate San Drags and the annual Super Twist for the Multiple Sclerosis Association.

Gold Cross ambulances made five runs to the dunes for the more seriously injured and many victims were taken to Pioneers Memorial Hospital’s emergency room in private vehicles.

In critical but stable condition in the hospital’s intensive care unit this morning is Rebecca Vaugh, 9, San Bernardino. She received head injuries in an off-road vehicle accident Sunday evening.

For the sheriff’s deputies, the weekend was just one long run. The fist call came in Friday night when a family fracas broke out and Steve Fraser, 17, Salton City, ended up in Pioneers for observation and then was discharged. Two persons were booked in the fray, according to Sheriff Fox.

“Before you’d know it, the scanner was going again,” Fox continued.

BLM Ranger Dave Krouskop reported while rangers were assisting victims of a two-motorcycle wreck near the store, “the crowd started throwing rocks and bottles at the rangers and the victims.”

They were still throwing things and hit the car bearing the victims en route to Pioneers, Krouskop said.

30 years ago

Nearly half of the Valley’s early tomato crop has been destroyed by the last two nights of frigid temperatures, officials of the Agricultural Commissioner’s office said today.

In addition to tomatoes, the other two vegetables to be hit hard were melons and asparagus, and local growers spent much of Thursday night trying to salvage what remained of their crops.

Overnight, Brawley experienced a low of 26 degrees, with El Centro and Holtville at 29 degrees, Jim Christopherson of the National Weather Service said today.

Although it was slightly warmer than Wednesday, Thursday’s freeze lasted longer, about seven hours, causing more damage, according to Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Dick Dillon.

Up to 10,000 of the Valley’s 12,500 acres of process and market tomatoes suffered some damage because of the freeze. About 40 percent of the crop was completely destroyed, he said.