Heard at the Seminar

Alastair Macaulay, Office of Senator Bruce McPherson

In light of recent events, the Senator's agricultural task force asked last month what could be done to help educate the public, the media, and new legislators about what is happening here in agricultural industry. Today we have a great opportunity to gain insight into some mechanisms and procedures that are already in place for determining work conditions and addressing grievances.

Freddie Capuyan, Agricultural Labor Relations Board

The Board's involvement in the election process is triggered by a union filing a Notice of Intent to Take Access (NA) with an ALRB regional office.

Rick Quandt, Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties

Some employers don't realize that the access rule only applies when a non-employee attempts to enter the private business property. It does not apply when employees are in a public place, where anybody is entitled to solicit them. Growers have to plan to train field supervisors about the ground rules and what they should do when approached by somebody who claims to have the right to talk to workers on the property. Supervisors and foremen have to know how to respond to visitors who attempt to take access to the crew, and how to deal with the crew itself in those circumstances. Training is very important.

Mary Mecartney, United Farm Workers

Too many employers don't seem to know what to do when organizers come to them after filing a Notice of Intent to Take Access. It would help if they called the Board office right away for an explanation. A lot of confusion can be eliminated if employers and union representatives communicate about what access means and how they will handle it as soon as they are served with an NA.

When you are served with a Notice of Intent to take Access, it's not the end of the world. Although there's a union campaign going on, it's important to keep on running an effective, profitable company. The union's purpose is to have a collective bargaining contract with you. We want to have contracts with healthy companies so that there are more benefits and money to go around.

Jim Sullivan, Gilles, Minor & Sullivan

There are friction points in the access process. There has been a lot of proper use of the access rights provided in ALRA regulations, but there has been a lot of improper use too. It's one thing when organizers take access to talk to workers about union representation, and the workers are free to listen or not. It's another when the union uses access for tactics not intended by the regulation, such as to videotape footage to use in "persuasion documentaries," or to masquerade as OSHA inspectors.

Freddie Capuyan

The Board has held that once certified, a representative of agricultural employees is conditionally entitled to enter the employer's premises to discuss contract negotiations and to investigate working conditions . . . The Board is not a party to any collective bargaining agreement, but it is always available for information - not advice - regarding rights and obligations under the Act.

Paul Richardson, Agricultural Labor Relations Board

For an employer to be in the position where there is going to be bargaining, first and foremost there must have been an election where a union is certified as the bargaining representative of a group of workers. The law does not require you to reach an agreement in your collective bargaining discussions. But it does require a bona fide attempt through active participation with a present intention to reach agreement. The parties are obligated to try sincerely and conscientiously to resolve their differences. The standard for bargaining performance is "good faith," and it is assessed within a totality of the circumstances.

Rick Quandt

Economics are always an issue in the employer's thinking, but unions are wrong when they assume that minimizing immediate costs is always paramount. Often more important to employers is preserving some of their freedoms and flexibility to operate their business well and to respond to rapidly changing industry conditions - trying to negotiate language that doesn't pin them down to an economically disadvantaged position in the longer run.

Mike Johnston, Teamsters Warehousemen and Helpers Union

I've seen a couple of kinds of bad faith bargaining over the years. In the simple kind, an employer who is angry at workers for having voted "against" him and at the union for trying to tell him how to run his business, starts off basically saying "take it or leave it." That's a common place to begin first negotiations, and it often can be worked around by people talking about what the real problems and issues are. The more sophisticated kind of bad faith bargaining is usually done by lawyers. The problems with that type from an employer standpoint is that the billable hours add up amazingly fast, it has a real bad impact on the morale of the workforce and how work gets done, and you may end up with a make-whole penalty later anyway from having bargained in bad faith.

Jim Bogart, Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of Central California

How important is open, honest communication at the bargaining table? I think dialogue serves everybody well, and that an employer should not only state a proposal but also articulate reasons behind it, explain the rational basis for the proposal. It helps to establish a positive, effective relationship between the negotiators, and it is respected by the workforce as well.

Paul Richardson

The ALRA was enacted to provide rights for workers, not to support unions or employers. The rights are set out in the statute. Workers have the right to self-organize; to form, join, or assist labor organizations; to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing; to engage in other concerted activity; to participate in other mutual aid or protection; and to refrain from any involvement in labor organizing and mutual aid. That is the bedrock of the Act, and all ULPs can be understood as infringements on them.

Mary Mecartney

A number of charges that we filed last year were withdrawn because the Board didn't have the resources to deal with them. Most of them dealt with access violations, and many with foreman surveillance of workers and organizers. The Board couldn't handle them all, and we wanted it to focus on discharge cases.

Mike Johnston

Unfair labor charges can take 3-4 years to resolve. We have one out there that is about 4 years old. It's really intolerable, and it does discourage everybody from using the process. In fairness to the ALRB, a lot of the problem has been caused by round after round of funding cuts and staff reductions. So when you get a surge of activity like the UFW has in strawberries right now, the Board is ill-prepared to respond to it, because their staff is so short.

Freddie Capuyan

Our priorities are given to cases in which the remedy would be back pay, cases such as those involving unlawful layoffs, discharges, refusals to rehire. When such cases involve many workers, we give top priority and expedite our processes.

Michael Stoker, Agricultural Labor Relations Board

Jerry Brown said in 1975 that all farm workers in California should have the same rights and opportunities afforded to them as all non-agricultural employees had under the NLRA. And I agree 100% on that. There is no reason why agricultural workers should be exempt from NLRA coverage. They do some of the most strenuous work there is, and if we have a federal law that protects any workers' rights to organize and bargain, it should also apply to those in agriculture. Since 1987 the national Board has been considering as non-agriculture some of what used to be clearly agriculture and exempt from their jurisdiction. If I could wave a magic wand today, I would eliminate the agricultural exception in the NLRA altogether. Growers in this state would probably like that, but those in the other 49 states would not. If our ALRA were fully consistent with the national law, it would make for much more stability and reduce the "forum shopping" by growers who want to get their cases heard before the NLRB.

Charlie Atilano, Department of Industrial Relations

Our numbers have not gone down like they have for the ALRB. The Labor Commissioner's caseload has been pretty consistent, mainly because we deal mostly with unpaid wages. People who haven't been paid what they are owed want to get redress, and they come to us for it-whether it is compensation for overtime, piece rate, whatever. We deal substantially with more than 1000 cases per year here just in the Salinas office, and the department has offices throughout the state. Of 150 charges that might be brought to us in a month, about 60 would be resolved through settlement, 50 dismissed for lack of merit, and the rest would go to formal hearing.

Mary Mecartney

The ALRA could and should do a lot more worker education. It would be very helpful if the ALRB helped to level the playing field by going out there, talking to the workers, and explaining their rights.

Sonya Varea-Hammond, UC Cooperative Extension

Labor is a large portion of all production expenses in agriculture, and we're continually trying to balance paying good wages while making enough of a profit to stay in business, where we can continue to provide jobs and employ workers. The ALRA has a big influence on all of our lives, whether we realize it or not.