The revelation that United Farm Staff could be representing employees at a Kern County firm owned by the state’s wealthiest farming household ought to have been a triumphant second for the storied union co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
Following many years of diminishing membership within the huge stretches of California’s farm fields, the UFW had seized on a brand new option to unionize employees, made doable by current state laws. Slightly than maintain a proper election at an organization job web site, union leaders had invited workers at Fantastic Nurseries, the nation’s largest grapevine nursery, to off-site conferences the place they have been instructed in easy methods to apply for $600 in federal reduction for farmworkers who labored through the pandemic, in addition to inspired to signal playing cards authorizing the UFW to signify them at Fantastic.
The UFW subsequently filed a petition with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, asserting {that a} majority of the 600-plus farmworkers at Fantastic Nurseries in Wasco had signed the authorization playing cards and asking that the UFW be licensed as their union consultant. It appeared to mark the UFW’s third victorious unionization drive in a matter of months.
However inside days, Fantastic — a part of the farming empire owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick — hit again with an explosive allegation: The corporate accused the UFW of utilizing the $600 in federal reduction as bait to trick farmworkers into signing the authorization playing cards. And it submitted almost 150 signed declarations from nursery employees saying that they had not understood that by signing the playing cards they have been voting to unionize.
Claudia Chavez, a full-time worker of a labor contractor for Fantastic Nurseries, is amongst a number of employees who informed The Instances that they attended conferences the place they understood that the UFW would assist them declare the $600. She stated she was given a card to signal, however didn’t know that signing it was a vote for the union.
“They stated clearly — this I do bear in mind — that it was $600 of help for farmworkers who labored throughout COVID,” Chavez, 43, stated throughout an interview exterior her Wasco house. “However they by no means stated, ‘In the event you signal, we’re going to return to your work.’”
Union leaders have stood their floor, alleging that the corporate intimidated employees into making false statements and introduced in a labor guide with a repute as a union buster to govern employee feelings within the weeks that adopted.
Antonio De Loera-Brust, UFW’s communications director, referred to as the allegations that employees have been tricked into signing union playing cards “categorically false.” The union has put ahead different employees who stated they understood what they have been signing and consider that UFW illustration would enhance their pay and dealing circumstances.
Nonetheless, what may have been a David-versus-Goliath story has develop into one thing tangled and way more troubling. The UFW and Fantastic are locked in battle, every using authorized muscle and PR prowess, and can current their instances to the ALRB, the state company charged with overseeing farm labor disputes and union elections.
Labor specialists say the result may have outsize ramifications for the way forward for unionizing farmworkers in California. Although nonetheless an influential voice in Democratic management circles, UFW has seen its on-the-ground presence and sway plummet from its vibrant heyday within the Sixties and ‘70s. At its peak, UFW had about 80,000 members throughout a whole lot of farms. Right this moment, that quantity has fallen to about 5,000, with one other 2,000 within the Teamsters or United Meals and Business Staff Worldwide unions.
If Fantastic is discovered to have engaged in unfair labor practices, it might be topic to monetary penalties. But when the union is discovered to have misled employees, it faces a blow to its credibility and its nascent resurgence might be stopped in its tracks.
“A method or one other it’s going to have an effect on the power of farmworkers to prepare,” stated Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, mission director on the UCLA Heart for Labor Analysis and Schooling. “If the union fails and it’s a setback to the organizing, it’s going to be an extended whereas earlier than they’ll discover a foothold to combat for farmworkers in California.”
The UFW-Fantastic skirmish is in some methods an outgrowth of a longer-running conflict between labor leaders and California’s highly effective agricultural pursuits over the UFW’s efforts to streamline the unionization course of.
For years, UFW leaders had argued that the method for unionizing work websites was stacked in opposition to them. Earlier than the brand new system went into impact, farmworkers voted for union illustration by secret poll at a devoted polling occasion, sometimes held on firm grounds. The UFW contends that left employees susceptible to employer intimidation.
In 2022, Meeting Invoice 2183 sought to permit farmworkers to pick labor illustration by way of mail-in ballots or a system often called card verify, which permits employees to authorize a union by signing playing cards off-site quite than voting in-person at a chosen polling place.
Gov. Gavin Newsom had vetoed an analogous invoice the earlier 12 months, citing issues particular to the integrity of the mail-in balloting. His group signaled he would additionally veto AB 2183. However President Biden publicly exhorted Newsom to signal the invoice, and the UFW organized a 335-mile march from Delano to Sacramento to ramp up stress.
Newsom signed the invoice, underneath the situation that or not it’s amended to restrict sure features. In 2023, the regulation was amended to take away the mail-in poll choice and cap the variety of work websites that might be petitioned by way of card verify to 75. It took impact Jan. 1, 2023, and can sundown in 2028.
Underneath the brand new system, a union can search to prepare an agricultural work web site with out notifying an employer. As soon as union representatives collect sufficient authorization playing cards to represent what they consider is majority help, the union recordsdata a petition with the state labor board and the employer. The ALRB should determine whether or not there may be proof a majority of the bargaining unit workers help forming a union.
However as is enjoying out within the Fantastic case, that course of could be appealed.
From the beginning, the brand new system has been shadowed by an absence of specifics on the duties of the union and employers within the card verify drive. It has taken the ALRB 10 months to publish proposed laws for the brand new regulation, and growers say they really feel they’ve been enjoying a sport with no guidelines.
UFW’s first certification petition underneath card verify landed in Stanislaus County in September when it sought to signify 250 employees at DMB Packing Corp., also called DiMare, the place it received 51% help. DiMare submitted a number of objections, together with an allegation that the union obtained signatures by way of “fraud” and “coercion.” The ALRB discovered the allegations lacked proof.
Guadalupe Luna, 55, stated working circumstances on the tomato packing firm in Newman have been depressing — that that they had no well being advantages, no paid day without work and obtained paid 77 cents for each bucket of tomatoes collected. Earlier than Luna arrived on the farm a few 12 months in the past, he stated, he labored on a farm in Firebaugh the place the UFW represented employees and so they obtained advantages and higher pay.
Luna, who’s on the bargaining committee for the union, stated the UFW conferences he attended with co-workers have been centered on the advantages of unionizing and didn’t embrace conversations concerning the $600 federal reduction funds. “The coworkers I spoke with, we talked and there wasn’t that [confusion].” he stated. “We simply talked to them and defined the method.”
DMB Packing President Jeff Dolan stated the corporate is interesting the labor board’s resolution. Nonetheless, he stated, negotiations with the UFW and employees have been “cordial and constructive.”
In Fallbrook, 50 miles north of San Diego, the UFW submitted a petition in January to signify greater than 70 workers at Olive Hill Greenhouses. In accordance with the ALRB, no objections have been filed, and either side are on the desk to barter their first contract.
Santiago Hernandez was amongst these desirous to unionize employees on the Fallbrook nursery. He stated he informed colleagues to speak to a UFW organizer and clarify what they needed out of their jobs and determine in the event that they needed to help a union.
The primary assembly, he stated, was about beginning a union and so they obtained the authorization playing cards to contemplate. He stated the final assembly he attended, the place individuals may drop off the playing cards, additionally allowed individuals to enroll in the $600 in reduction. He didn’t hear from colleagues about being tricked, he stated, and felt it had been clearly communicated that the 2 weren’t linked.
“The union is right here to assist farmworkers, to not screw with farmworkers,” Hernandez stated.
One of many largest employers within the Central Valley, the Fantastic Co. prides itself on its therapy of farmworkers, together with paying above minimal wage and increasing firm advantages — like free use of its well being facilities and gymnasiums — to full-time workers. Fantastic has additionally invested thousands and thousands of {dollars} in farmworker communities in Kern County, constructing parks and faculties and enhancing infrastructure.
The Resnicks, house owners of FIJI Water, Fantastic Pistachios and POM Fantastic, are main political donors who’ve contributed greater than $220,000 to Newsom’s campaigns alone.
The employees at Fantastic Nurseries’ sprawling complicated in Wasco are likely to wine and desk grapevines and nut tree rootstocks. In each the corporate and union narratives concerning the card verify episode, the employees have been portrayed as pawns in a a lot bigger sport. The divergent narratives supply little room for a center floor, for instance whether or not there may have been some confusion within the conferences due to a common lack of awareness of the UFW’s position.
There does appear to be common settlement that the organizing conferences for Fantastic workers included dialogue of each the federal reduction funds and the unionization drive. The U.S. Division of Agriculture has approved a number of organizations to distribute the one-time grants, together with the UFW Basis, which is separate from the labor union.
Rosa Maria Silva de Rodriguez, 40, who has labored at Fantastic Nurseries for 5 years, stated she hosted a number of of the conferences at her house final 12 months. She stated she needs a union as a result of she feels employees are being mistreated. The water supplied in 5-gallon coolers was inconsistently refilled and cleaned, she stated. She stated she’s had uncomfortable conditions wherein male coworkers made suggestive feedback about ladies and she or he knew of no avenue for reporting it.
Silva de Rodriguez stated it was clear on the conferences that the federal reduction cash was not tied to signing a union card. The UFW consultant “at all times talked concerning the rights of employees, what it meant to kind a union, to herald a union, what the union would do,” Silva de Rodriguez stated.
But different employees interviewed by The Instances spoke in equally heartfelt phrases about feeling duped.
Maria Pedro, 27, makes $16.30 an hour as a seasonal employee for a labor contractor at Fantastic Nurseries. She likes that the work within the greenhouses is indoors — and due to this fact reliable, even when it rains.
“Look, I simply obtained house, and I’m clear,” Pedro stated on a current afternoon, as she sat at a desk in her work garments, khaki-colored pants and a black, long-sleeved shirt.
She described attending a gathering final 12 months at a colleague’s house in Wasco. She stated a UFW consultant was there to assist Pedro and others apply for the $600 federal grant. As a single mom of three, the cash would assist her pay hire and purchase diapers.
Pedro, who emigrated from Guatemala 5 years in the past, stated she had by no means heard of the union. However through the assembly, the rep defined that the group helps farmworkers assert their rights. Pedro signed a number of paperwork. Amongst them was a white card emblazoned with the union’s eagle brand that reads, in English and Spanish, “I authorize the Union of Farm Staff of America to be my union consultant to collectively negotiate an employment contract with my employer to enhance my wages, working circumstances and advantages.”
The union rep by no means requested if the employees needed to hitch the union and didn’t clarify the importance of the playing cards, Pedro stated.
On Feb. 23, the UFW filed a petition with the ALRB to signify Fantastic Nurseries workers. A number of employees, together with individuals for and in opposition to unionizing, described attending conferences days later, led by an outdoor guide, Raul Calvo, who has constructed a enterprise advising farm corporations on easy methods to keep away from unionization. The employees stated Calvo informed them concerning the union’s entrance into Fantastic Nurseries and that when the contract was ratified, 3% of their paycheck would go towards union dues.
Pedro stated it was solely then that she realized that, by signing the cardboard, she had voted for the UFW to signify her. “Due to him, we understood what was taking place, as a result of the union by no means actually defined what they did,” she stated.
If her title was on the petition, Pedro stated, she needed it eliminated and requested Fantastic for assist. She was among the many employees who signed a declaration.
Silva de Rodriguez, however, contends Calvo was the primary to recommend workers have been tricked. She stated employees started admitting to supervisors that that they had signed the union card and confronted stress to resign their help. She stated she has seen employees who as soon as supported the unionization effort now protest in opposition to it.
“It bothers me, however on the identical time, it offers me a bit extra power, as a result of I’m preventing for one thing honest, one thing honest for everybody,” she stated.
The union filed a cost in opposition to Fantastic Nurseries, alleging the corporate required employees to attend a “captive viewers” assembly to induce workers to reject UFW illustration. Fantastic Nurseries maintains it “supplied workers with factual details about the method and their rights.”
Calvo confirmed to The Instances he’s working for the corporate however declined to reply questions on his position.
The ALRB acknowledged receiving employee declarations on March 1 and referred to as the allegations “severe in nature.” Three days later, the regional director of the labor board moved ahead to certify the union’s petition, figuring out the UFW had submitted 327 legitimate authorization playing cards from a bargaining unit of 640, establishing majority help.
The dispute crystallized final week when about 100 Fantastic Nurseries employees left work and traveled 60 miles north to the labor board’s Visalia workplace. They sported the orange security vests they’re required to put on at work and carried indicators studying, “We don’t need a union! Take heed to our voices. Don’t ignore us.”
Whereas the corporate and two members who spoke with The Instances have been adamant the demonstration was worker-led, the UFW has filed a cost with the board alleging that Fantastic Nurseries coerced employees into attending.
Final week, in yet one more escalation, a Central Valley regulation agency that incessantly represents the UFW filed prices with the state Civil Rights Division on behalf of seven employees, together with Silva de Rodriguez, alleging that Fantastic Nurseries doesn’t present sexual harassment coaching, leading to a “hostile work surroundings.”
Fantastic fired again, dismissing the costs as “bogus claims.” In an announcement, firm President Rob Yraceburu stated each supervisor, together with these employed by way of third events, is in compliance with all obligatory coaching, and that the corporate supplied the UFW with its worker handbook, which incorporates its harassment coverage, per week earlier than the costs have been filed.
“It’s getting tougher to maintain up with the fireplace hose of lies the UFW is pushing of their effort to divert consideration from their fraudulent conduct in a vote determined by simply seven votes, however the place greater than 150 farmworkers say they have been misled,” Yraceburu stated.
Fantastic has appealed the UFW certification. The state labor board is predicted to fulfill this month to contemplate the corporate’s objections.
This text is a part of The Instances’ fairness reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Basis, exploring the challenges dealing with low-income employees and the efforts being made to deal with California’s financial divide.