Homeowner Associations consist of townhomes, condos or single family homes. HOA dues are usually required and with those fees you will get some features and benefits. Which may include insurance, maintenance, landscaping, pools, exercise room and more. You will want to pay close attention to those rules as far as parking and outdoor maintenance. You will also want to check the homeowner reserve funds and what is covered. Del Monte supplied its workers with hard hats, rubber aprons and gloves, and earplugs.
Hard hats were especially important to protect workers from cans that might fall from the system of overhead conveyors. A few employees did suffer major traumatic injuries. These were most often caused by mishaps with machines and hands. Working on the quick production machines was no easy task and required constant attention. Between and , the International Brotherhood of Teamsters [IBT or Teamsters] represented all assembly, production and warehouse workers at Plant 3.
There was at least one union representative on each shift to respond to employee concerns. However, many workers felt that the union did not represent them well and did very little to improve conditions in the plant.
The IBT tended to negotiate with Del Monte officials behind closed doors, making deals without soliciting the opinion of the workers. The IBT generally ignored the seasonal, largely female, Spanish-speaking workforce that made up the bulk of Del Monte employees during the production season. Union representatives often did not speak Spanish. Union literature and ballots were printed only in English, preventing even year-round Spanish-speaking employees from participating in union activities.
The CWC published union materials in Spanish and taught workers how to vote in union elections. This effort was largely unsuccessful and prompted the opening of the Cannery Workers Service Center in The center provided a multitude of services to Spanish-speaking workers, including bilingual shop steward training, a newsletter, and medical service referrals. As the agricultural industry in the Valley slowly declined, the IBT did little to protect the workers at Plant 3. The union seemed satisfied with keeping workers employed, even if it meant severe pay cuts and pension consequences.
Throughout the s, s, and s, the landscape of the Santa Clara Valley experienced a dramatic transformation. Orchards were steadily replaced by business and research parks and housing developments. The agricultural industry gave way to the high technology enterprises that earned Silicon Valley its name. In the s and s, the valley lost over 50, acres of fruit and nut trees, most of it to the Central Valley and other regions of California.
Del Monte initially responded to the changing landscape by building more storage facilities at Plant 3, to house product which was being transported from further and further away. But transporting product over great distances cost more and could negatively impact quality. Clean water legislation required canners to invest in new waste treatment facilities.
Construction and maintenance of these facilities put another significant dent in profits. Del Monte Corporation continued production at the plant for almost a dozen years after the turnover to Silicon Valley was complete. The corporation even invested in new machinery at the plant just 6 months before it closed.
In December the last cans rolled off the Plant 3 assembly line. The entire Plant 3 production was moved to a new plant in Modesto. Employees were offered the opportunity to move with the plant. Some took it and moved to the Central Valley; others chose to retire or leave the industry. Some employees reported that they would have lost valuable seniority or pay bracket status had they moved to the Modesto plant.
The huge plant, warehouses and other buildings on Auzerais stood vacant for seven years. I went by with my granddaughter and I go what are they doing? It was mine. In the s, the city of San Jose embarked on a plan to revitalize the downtown core, which had long been neglected while others neighborhoods thrived. Plans for the downtown core were spelled out in the General Plan.
The area west and south of downtown, around San Carlos Street, was targeted for higher-density housing projects of 25 or more dwelling units per acre.
KB Homes developed the Monte Vista community at the former Plant 3 site to provide a mix of single-family detached townhomes and multi-story condominium buildings. The distinctive Del Monte water tower also remains. The Del Monte Corporation traces its history back to the earliest days of the fruit processing industry.
The Corporation grew out of a long series of mergers and consolidation starting in and continuing into the s. This association joined others in as part of the California Packing Corporation [Calpak] , headquartered in San Francisco. By the s, Calpak had a national presence and a famous brand — Del Monte. After World War II, the brand became recognized around the world and the corporation took Del Monte as its name in In , the company became part of R.
Reynolds Industries, but retained its name and brand identity. But the brand and the name, built on the high quality of Santa Clara Valley agricultural products, continue to thrive.
The company also marketed no fewer than 75 other brands. But it was quickly apparent that consumers associated the name Del Monte with a high-quality product. Upon its creation in , the California Packing Corporation Calpak adopted the Del Monte brand as the premium label for the new corporation. The first national advertising campaign featuring Del Monte was launched in April Full color ads in national magazines like Good Housekeeping and the Saturday Evening Post emphasized high quality, good taste and good nutrition.
Even when consumers knew they were eating the same peaches, they expressed a preference to buy the can with the Del Monte label over a generic one.
In , Calpak changed its name to the Del Monte Corporation, a title it has held through further mergers and acquisitions. Del Monte has in many ways set the standard for the development of brand identity and brand consciousness.
Work in the canning industry throughout the twentieth century was characterized by two major considerations: the gendered division of labor and the seniority system for work assignments and promotions. The California Packing Corporation, like almost all its contemporaries in industrial production, rigidly defined jobs for men and jobs for women. Men were assigned to do the heavy lifting, including work in the warehouse, inventory, delivering produce to the canning lines, and monitoring the labeling machines.
Much of this work was staggered to supply a steady stream of product leaving the cannery year-round, so it was not dependent on the seasons. These job assignments rested on the assumptions that 1 only men were capable of the physical labor required and 2 men needed full-time year-round work to support their families. Women were assigned to the food preparation tasks on the production line, including peeling, cutting, sorting and can filling.
These jobs were in many ways reflective of the domestic work women did in their own kitchens. This work was also entirely seasonal. This pattern persisted even after most of the food preparation tasks were mechanized. In the last twenty years of its history, Plant 3 did experience a relaxation of these gender boundaries, with more women moving into full-time, year-round work in all areas of the cannery.
Seniority was intended to reward long-time employees with steady work, promotions and pay increases. Seniority at Del Monte was difficult to figure because so many people worked for only months out of the year. For seasonal workers, seniority meant a job each season, though it did not guarantee a specific job. Seniority often meant getting the day shift instead of evening or swing. Some seasonal workers felt that seniority should decide who got the best spots on the assembly line.
But more often discretion in job placement was left entirely to the floor ladies and supervisors. Full-time, year-round workers had the advantage in seniority. If a year-round worker with seniority was without a job, that worker was entitled to any job on the line, even if it displaced a seasonal worker who had been in the same job for several years. The system also favored year-round workers in pay scales. One lady came up and told my mom that there was a little Portuguese girl on the line and she wanted my job, and that was the way it worked because she had a higher number.
In other words she worked there more years than I did. The fundamental process of canning fruit changed little from its inception in the s to the closing of Del Monte Plant 3 in The means of production, however, did change dramatically during the 20th century. The assembly line was introduced in the s and mechanization eventually replaced handwork in almost every area.
Fresh fruit and vegetables for canning were delivered to the cannery via rail or truck. Pears were stored in the pear shed to continuing ripening for 5 — 10 days. Other fruits, such as apricots, peaches and tomatoes, and most vegetables had to be canned almost immediately. During the harvest season, the canning lines operated virtually hours per day. Most fruit was put through a steam bath to remove the skin. In the early days, skinned fruit was pitted and cut by hand as it moved along a conveyor belt and bad fruit was sorted out by hand.
By , most of these tasks were automated, with the exception of some of the quality control, which was still done by hand. Once pitted and cut, the fruit was put into cans or jars, then juice or sugared water was added, and the can was sealed.
The filling of cans was done by hand for many years before those steps were mechanized. Cans were weighed individually and checked by a quality control worker to confirm the correct weight.
The cans then traveled into the cook room, where they were cooked to preserve the fruit and secure against contamination. Most vegetables were peeled and sliced, then cooked using steam heat. The cooked vegetables were then packed into cans and the cans were sealed. Unlike fruit, vegetables were often hot when they came to the filling stations.
Many workers reported the discomfort and danger of packing hot vegetables, especially spinach. Filled cans then proceeded to be labeled and stacked in the warehouse.
During the peak of harvests, the cans would be stacked without labels, so that label operators could move to the canning lines. The entire output of the cannery for the season was called the pack. For example, canneries reported the size of the pack for individual products, like peaches or pears. They also reported their total pack of all products for the year. The canning industry, by its very nature, requires the employment of a flexible workforce which grows and shrinks with the fruit and vegetable harvest seasons.
When the harvests of spinach, pears, peaches, or apricots came in, they had to be processed immediately to insure high quality. When no vegetables and fruits were ripening — from November until mid-March — there was almost nothing to do at the cannery.
There were also downtimes in May and June, after the spinach was canned but before peaches were in. During each canning season, the plant operated around the clock, with three shifts of workers per day.
Seasonal workers had to maximize their income while the jobs were available, so most made sure to be at work every single day they could. This might mean coming to work sick, staying at work even after an injury, or leaving children unsupervised. Some migrant workers picked in the fields in the early part of the season and transitioned to the cannery when the lines started running. In , seasonal workers gained unemployment benefits, giving them a measure of financial stability through the winter months.
Work at Del Monte presented special opportunities and challenges for mothers who wanted or needed to work. Most of the Del Monte Plant 3 oral history respondents were working mothers who chose seasonal work at Del Monte because it fit into their family commitments.
Like all working mothers, women working in the cannery faced the challenge of finding appropriate and affordable child care. Calpak did at times operate a nursery at the Plant 3 site. The nursery provided basic child care during the day shift and the second shift. Some women left their children with family members or neighbors; others paid for babysitters. When female workers got desperate, they might leave their children sleeping at home while they worked the night shift.
There were even reports of children sleeping in cars at canneries while their mothers worked. For many years, Calpak forbade pregnant women from working.
Many women worked out complicated shift arrangements with their husbands. The husband might work the day shift at his employer and the wife the night shift or swing shift at the cannery. During the day, the wife slept a bit, did chores and prepared food. The family ate dinner together, then the wife went off to work and the husband put the kids to bed.
When the wife returned home around dawn, she was just in time to fix breakfast for her husband and children. Such arrangements were exhausting but women workers struggled through, knowing the great contribution their paychecks made to the family finances.
In many cases, women workers reported that the money they earned at the cannery supplemented the family budget, allowing for a few more luxuries in the household. Some spent their paychecks on better school clothes, books and supplies for their kids. Some saved up for a new washer or other household convenience. And many reported that they were able to buy homes because of the money they earned in the cannery. In January , five former Del Monte employees were interviewed at Plant 3 before it was demolished later that year.
The interviews can be viewed on the Internet Archive using the links below. Martin Luther King Jr. Search for:. Email Address. There has been an error, please check the information you entered and try again.
Skip to content. Through the Years The fruit canning industry began in San Jose in the s. San Jose Fruit Packing Co.
The Early Years The early years of fruit production in the Valley witnessed extensive experimentation to perfect the processes of preserving, canning and drying fruit. Labor Work tasks in the cannery were neatly divided between food preparation and industrial work, both skilled and unskilled.
California Fruit Canners Assn. Most of the acreage was planted in cherry trees. Small family orchards like this one thrived in the Santa Clara Valley. Families could make a decent living selling their harvests to packing houses and canneries. Drying fruits is an excellent way to preserve their flavor and texture. Prunes were the largest crop in the valley. Many a youngster spent time harvesting prunes on his hands and knees.
Canners saved money by using a standard template, which could then be printed with the correct fruit name. Notice the railroad spur which stops directly in front of Building F, the main warehouse. The company benefited from a substantial cost savings because it did not have to carry its products to and from the train depot. After drying in the sun, the dried fruit was sent to a packing house for shipment to markets around the world.
Most canneries of the early 20th century prepared jams and jellies, as well as canned fruit and vegetables. Jellies could be prepared with fruit remnants or fruits not attractive enough for canning. Jellies were also easier to prepare and thus provided a sure stream of revenue while the canning of sliced fruit was still in its experimental phase.
Early canneries typically produced their own cans. This work required skilled tinsmiths and machinists, all of whom were men. This image shows the beginnings of mechanization in the factory. The women are working with the fruit by hand, with crates of cans below or next to their workstations.
Filled cans are carried out of the work area on a small conveyor belt. Each cannery packed under a variety of brand names. Notice the CFCA seal on the label. CFCA canneries operated more or less independently, but all agreed to adopt Del Monte as their premium brand.
The Del Monte shield has changed little from its early 20th-century design. It is recognized as one of the first modern brands in American business history. Calpak packed under a wide variety of brand names, some of which were only used at a certain time of year. Fruit, especially tropical fruit, was a great luxury and saved for special occasions. Usages Main Usage. Do you need more information about this building and its related companies? More Information. Location Main Address. Address as text.
Technical Data Height estimated. Floors above ground. Construction start. Construction end. Building costs. Involved Companies architect.
0コメント