Editorial from the Wall Street Journal: Planting a Pro-Union Ruling Down on the Farm

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece on employees who keep trying to boot the United Farm Workers, but California’s labor board won’t allow it. This excerpt offers a good sense of the pro-union tactics at work in this case.

“In the tradition of the Obama administration’s pro-union shenanigans with the National Labor Relations Board, California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) has teamed up with the United Farm Workers union to shake down workers at the state’s largest tree-fruit grower. Gerawan Farming, a third-generation family farm in Fresno, is trying to fend off the attack.

“On Sept. 17, ALRB administrative-law judge Mark Soble issued a long-awaited decision on whether to count the Gerawan workers’ ballots cast in 2013 to decertify the UFW. Given the ALRB’s pro-union bias, Mr. Soble’s decision to throw out the ballots, disenfranchising thousands of workers, wasn’t surprising. Unlike other California agencies, the ALRB employs in-house administrative-law judges to arbitrate complaints. Still, both management and workers at Gerawan Farming were disappointed.

“‘To destroy ballots after the majority of employees asked for an election is wrong and undemocratic,’ said Dan Gerawan, co-owner of Gerawan Farming in a written statement. ‘Thousands of our employees were told by the ALRB they had the right to vote as they wanted. To now say their votes won’t be counted is wrong and disrespectful to workers and their right of free choice.’

“During the summer of 2013, Gerawan workers began collecting signatures to hold a referendum to decertify the union. Following UFW complaints of unfair labor practices, Sylvia Torres-Guillen, the ALRB’s general counsel at the time, requested state-court permission to allow ALRB staff into the fields to educate workers about their rights.

“In September 2013, Gerawan workers submitted roughly 2,000 signatures, well above the 1,300 necessary to hold a referendum. About 2,500 were eligible to cast ballots. But Mr. Shawver claimed that 1,000 of the signatures couldn’t be verified. Gerawan workers submitted 1,000 more signatures. Mr. Shawver then used the pretext of pending UFW complaints and illegal employer interference in signature-gathering to block an election.

“After Gerawan workers protested in Sacramento, the ALRB ordered a secret-ballot election in November 2013. Staffers from the labor board supervised the voting. Nevertheless, the UFW filed numerous complaints contesting the election and preventing a final ballot count.

“On Sept. 17, Mr. Soble discarded the ballots because of alleged employer interference with the collection of signatures, which he claimed ‘tainted the entire decertification process.’ This interference, according to Mr. Soble, amounted mainly to a ‘well-timed’ raise granted to workers by Gerawan, undermining support for the union.

“Gerawan workers plan to appeal Mr. Soble’s ruling. Meanwhile, thousands of farm workers could be forced to accept as their bargaining representative a union they don’t want and never voted to
accept.” S