California table grapes and Crown Petroleum products have been removed from the AFL-CIO “Don’t buy” list at right — testimony to the effectiveness of labor boycotts.

Pointing out that many of its goals have been met, the United Farm Workers of America has called off the 16-year boycott of nonunion California table grapes.

“The crusade begun by our late leader Cesar Chavez crusade to eliminate use of five of the most toxic chemicals plaguing farm workers and their families has been largely successful,” said UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, in announcing the boycott’s end.

Three of the pesticides — Dinoseb, parathion and Phosdrin — “are gone,” Rodriguez wrote. He added that a fourth, methyl bromide, is scheduled to be banned by 2005 and that severe restrictions have been placed on use of the fifth, Captan.

Rodriguez made the announcement in a letter to the St. Louis-based National Farm Worker Ministry, an arm of the National Council of Churches.

In addition, he wrote, “It is not fair to ask our supporters to honor a boycott when the union must devote all of its present resources to organizing and bargaining.” In the past six years alone, Rodriguez pointed out, the UFW has won 20 union representation elections and bargained 24 new contracts with growers.

Members of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers (PACE) Local Union 4-227 at the crown Petroleum refinery in Pasadena, Tex., have ratified a new agreement with the company.

The pact brings to an end a 5-year lockout of the workers from their jobs and a multi-faceted union campaign against the company that included a boycott of its products and filling stations.

PACE Executive Vice President Robert E. Wages, who directed the settlement talks, called the return of PACE members to the refinery “a great victory” and expressed thanks that “peace has been declared by both sides.”

PACE President Boyd Young said the union members are returning to work under a contract that provides essential guarantees and protections. “It is time to put rancor aside and work with Crown to improve the operation of the refinery and its environmental compliance,” he added.

Local 4-227 President Mack Hickerson expressed heartfelt thanks to “the thousands of labor, civil rights, religious and environmental activists who rallied around our cause and gave life to our campaign.”