WHEREAS Oregon farm workers have been organizing under PCUN's leadership for over ten years, to win basic rights including the right to bargain collectively with their employers; and WHEREAS NORPAC, with headquarters in Oregon, is the biggest food processing cooperative west of the Mississippi, and is jointly owned by some 300 growers; and

WHEREAS farm workers with PCUN have organized strikes, work stoppages, camp occupations, protests, vigils, legislative efforts, witness accompaniment programs, national letter-writing campaigns and other such actions to move NORPAC growers to negotiate collective bargaining agreements, but to no avail; and

WHEREAS NORPAC growers and their agents have physically and verbally assaulted PCUN organizers, posted guards at camp entrances to keep union organizers out, fired and evicted workers for union activity, plowed under fields in retaliation for union activity, and even arrested clergy who have supported workers at NORPAC growers' farms and labor camps; and

WHEREAS as a last resort PCUN called for a boycott of NORPAC products in 1992 and expanded that boycott in 1995 to include Gardenburger products; and

WHEREAS the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon conducted a comprehensive study of these issues and the National Farm Worker Ministry has visited Oregon to obtain first-hand information on two occasions and requested a meeting with NORPAC chairman Alan Keudell, which was declined; and WHEREAS the United Farm Workers of America (AFL-CIO), the National Farm Worker Ministry, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, and over 75 other local, regional and national organizations have officially endorsed PCUN's campaign and boycott;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the National Ministries Unit of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, committed to the rights to organize and collective bargaining of farm workers, hereby officially endorses PCUN's national boycott of NORPAC products and resolves that it will promote the boycott of NORPAC products, including FLAV-R-PAC/Westpac brand frozen fruit and vegetables (both retail and wholesale), and "Gardenburger" brand products, whose makers use NORPAC as a major distributor of their products.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this action be communicated to PCUN, NORPAC and Gardenburger, Inc.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this action be communicated to the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA Member Communions, State and Local Ecumenical Partners, urging them to endorse this boycott.