Those protestors were met with another troop of farm workers who turned out with signs blaring their support for the assemblyman. Alejo was in Sacramento on Thursday and spoke to protestors in his Salinas office on speaker phone.

“We are here to support Luis Alejo,” said Lupe Sanchez of Salinas. “He has been our champion and the voice of farm workers.”

In an interview with The Californian on Thursday, Alejo said he remains neutral on the bill, and held his vote because he still had several questions and concerns over the language of the legislation that were not addressed prior to the vote by the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee on which he serves.

“I had concerns about the bill and reached out to the union prior to the hearing,” Alejo said. “We had a meeting set up for Tuesday (prior to the vote) and (the UFW) canceled.”

The bill has passed the state Senate and was heard in the ALEC last Wednesday but failed by one vote.

According the author of SB 25, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board indicated that under certain circumstances a loophole in the law makes it unable to enforce some labor contracts between farms and farm workers even after employees have voted by secret ballot to certify a union. SB 25 would fix the problem by giving the ALRB the power to enforce collective bargaining agreements or a mediator’s decision, he said.

In 2002, California’s Legislature passed the binding mediation law for first contracts. The binding mediation law was meant to prevent decades-long of legal maneuvering and delay of first contracts following secret ballot elections won by farm workers. SB 25 would extend binding mediation to subsequent contracts.

“In some cases, these hardworking men and women who put food on our tables decide through their vote that they want to organize, only to face months or years of delaying tactics by employers intent on avoiding collective bargaining,” Steinberg said. “We need to close this legal loophole to ensure farm workers that their vote counts, and to give the ALRB the authority to enforce the law.

But Alejo said he does not see that as a compelling enough reason to alter the original 2002 bill that established the binding arbitration law. Another concern the assemblyman expressed is that SB 25 would expand rights to the UFW that no other union enjoys.

“No other union has what they are asking for in this bill – no other category of organized labor,” Alejo said.

Armando Elenes, vice president of the UFW, said Thursday that Alejo’s position on the bill was “shocking.”

The Grower-Shipper Association of Central California’s president and general counsel Jim Bogart applauded Alejo’s abstention.

“Assemblymember Alejo is intellectually honest,” Bogart said. “He recognized that this bill as written would have taken the voice away from the farm workers and placed it in the hands of a third-party mediator. We think Assemblyman Alejo made the right choice to abstain. If SB 25 as written had truly championed farm worker rights, plenty of other legislators would have voted for it. They did not.”

Another component of the law that stuck in Alejo’s craw is that it would restrict input from judges.

“As a lawyer, I’m concerned about any bill that tries to limit the discretion of judges,” he said.

The Californian Farm Bureau Federation has additional concerns, and has opposed the bill since it was in the state Senate. Bryan Little, director of labor affairs for the CFBF, said it could have the effect of sweeping workers into a labor union whether they want to join or not.

“It would also make binding arbitration available without having the union bargain in good faith, and then in 90 days it would go to binding mediation,” Little said. “It’s a matter of principle.”