One of California’s biggest vegetable growers refused to bargain for a United Farm Workers contract for 32 years after workers voted for the union. They finally won their union contract only after a UFW-sponsored law passed in 2002 letting farm workers bring in neutral mediators to hammer out union contracts when growers refuse to negotiate. Since that first union contract expired in 2010, the grower has delayed renegotiating the agreement.
Companies play elaborate games and find legal loopholes to get around the law. During the 1980s, 54 growers employing about 10,000 union members protected by UFW contracts allegedly went out of business and changed corporate identities to deny farm workers representation by the UFW—and this practice continues today.
In March 2012, the UFW asked the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board to order a large tomato grower into binding mediation under the 2002 law. The tomato grower refused to implement the decision of the mediator and the ALRB so the workers could have a UFW contract. The ALRB says it lacks the legal authority to go to court to make the company honor the law.
That’s why farm workers won a key victory when the California State Senate just approved Senate Bill 25, by state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). SB 25, also sponsored by the UFW, would provide for binding mediation when growers refuse to renegotiate existing union contracts. It would also stop companies from using corporate restructuring to deny farm workers the union representation for which they voted. And it would close a loophole in the 2002 binding mediation law that leaves the state powerless when growers ignore orders to implement union contracts.
SB 25 now goes to the state Assembly in Sacramento. Please act now to send your message of support for SB 25 to assemblymembers by visiting http://action.ufw.org/sb25.
Arturo S. Rodriguez, President
United Farm Workers of America