California's Union-Sponsored War on Farmers

United Farm Workers and its government allies are working hard to destroy jobs.

By ALLYSIA FINLEY

            

'At what point do you look at this picture and ask, 'Why are you fighting anymore?'" muses Dan Gerawan, whose third-generation family farm in Fresno, Calif., has been under assault by California's labor-regulatory complex.
Within days a state mediator could impose an unwieldy labor contract that may force him out of business. However, the ultimate victims will be his farm workers.
Mr. Gerawan's story illustrates the devolution of California's progressive dream. His grandfather migrated from Dust Bowl Oklahoma and started a small farm, which his father expanded into the country's largest grower of peaches and nectarines. Dan and his brother grew up toiling in the fields alongside the workers, as they still do.
Employees of Gerawan Farming can earn more than $15 per hour (the state industry average is $8.70) plus modest retirement and health benefits. The Gerawans also pay for the workers' English-language instruction and their children's Catholic school tuition. Silvia Lopez, who has worked on the farm for 15 years, says "there's no place that they care about safety and benefits like Gerawan," and that workers can talk to the owners if they have a problem.

 

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Migrant workers harvest strawberries at a farm in this March 13, 2013 file photo near Oxnard, California.

The United Farm Workers muscled its way onto the farm in 1990 but quickly lost support. In that year, the UFW won an election to organize Gerawan workers (with just 536 total votes) and in 1992 was certified by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Yet after holding just one bargaining session, the union lost interest and never procured a contract.
Then, after nearly two decades without negotiations, UFW organizers turned up last October and demanded a contract that would require employees to pay 3% of their wages in dues (between $600 and $1,000 a year). Gerawan also says that the union wanted the company to fire workers who didn't pay up.
The UFW needs the cash to pay its own bills. Since its heyday in the 1970s, the union has lost roughly 90% of its members. Last year, it spent $1.2 million more than it collected, based on Department of Labor filings. Hitting up Gerawan's 5,000 workers could double the union's revenues, and the easiest way to extract the money from workers was to enlist the state's help.
Early this year, the Gerawans and UFW representatives met to discuss the union's demands, but in March the union abruptly broke off negotiations and petitioned the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to compel Gerawan into binding arbitration to impose a contract. A 2002 state law allows farmworker unions to sidestep collective bargaining and demand state mediation of first-time contracts. No other labor group in the state has this right.
Meanwhile, California Senate President Darrell Steinberg is driving legislation that would allow farmworker unions to request state mediation whenever a contract expires, thus obliterating collective bargaining. Unions often prefer mediation because they don't have to negotiate with management, and workers don't get to vote on the final contract.
Mr. Gerawan says an imposed contract would hurt his ability to manage staff and resources and could ultimately force the farm out of business. In addition to the dues, the United Farm Workers general counsel Mario Martinez says the union wants full-blown pension plans and more expensive medical benefits.
The Gerawans and their workers have been resisting the union power grab. First, the Gerawans complained to the state's Agricultural Labor Relations Board that the union had abandoned Gerawan workers two decades ago, and therefore mediation was inappropriate. The five-member board, dominated by left-leaning academics and labor attorneys, rejected the complaint because the union was never officially decertified. Most of the current workers were unaware that the union was ever certified, since 95% of them weren't around in 1990 when the vote took place.
Lupe Garcia, who has worked on the farm since 1977, requested that he and 15 other workers be allowed to participate or at the very least observe the mediation, which under state law is "on the record" and should be open to the public. The state board denied the request, ruling that the workers were represented by a committee of employees handpicked by the union.
Mr. Garcia then sued the state for violating his and fellow workers' due process. A Fresno Superior Court judge has yet to rule on the case. Meanwhile, Gerawan workers are circulating a petition to hold an election to decertify the union. They already have more than 1,250 signatures. To be valid, a majority of workers must vote to decertify. The clincher: The election must occur before the mediator imposes a contract, which could happen anytime in the next three weeks.
Meantime, one Gerawan worker recently filed a police report claiming that a union operative threatened him with physical assault if he didn't support the union. Others tell me union operatives have shown up at their homes and passed around fliers that suggest workers could earn "libertad con papeles" (freedom papers)—i.e., immigration amnesty—if they pledge support for the union.
The union's general counsel, Mr. Martinez, says the workers' allegations are "complete lies," and that the union is being vindicated by the "neutral state-appointed officials" on the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, the union has filed 14 unfair-labor-practice complaints in an effort to undermine the company's support among workers. (Gerawan denies any wrongdoing.)
Last month, the union charged Gerawan management with aiding the decertification effort because three of its 55 supervisors had helped circulate the petition (notwithstanding Gerawan's instructions not to). The Agricultural Labor Relations Board's attorneys requested a temporary restraining order from state court against Gerawan and permission to allow the board's staff into the fields to instruct Gerawan workers of their rights—on the company's dime. The attorneys also argued that employees could be considered "agents" of the employer if their anti-union activities reflected their managements' views.
Fresno Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hamilton ordered the company's supervisors to stop circulating the petition, but he added that the state's Agricultural Labor Relations Board appeared to be "in cahoots" with the union and that "it is important for the Court to be suspicious of government agencies and ensure that the rights of everyone are protected."
The board isn't the only state body that appears in cahoots with the union. According to Mr. Steinberg, the Senate president, Gerawan has "unlawfully coerced, interfered with, and restrained its agricultural employees." Mr. Steinberg's former campaign adviser Richie Ross, who works as a registered lobbyist for the UFW and a consultant for Democratic legislators, strong-armed the senator's bill through the legislature last month.
"I don't think we will survive" if Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, says Mr. Gerawan. "The state doesn't want good employers." Nor does it seem to care about protecting workers.
Ms. Finley is an editorial writer for the Journal.

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