Volume 6, Number 1, Winter-Spring 1997
Paul Richardson, General Counsel of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board and former elected District Attorney of Placer County, places the challenges facing farm labor market participants and the Board itself in the context of 21 years of experience under the Act. (An earlier version of this article appeared in the Los Angeles Times on April 7, 1997.) Mr. Richardson will also be one of the featured speakers at a one-day seminar, "Observing the ALRA in 1997," in Salinas on Monday, June 9, 1997.
A new chapter in agricultural labor relations history is being played out in the strawberry fields along California's Central Coast.
Under new leadership, the United Farm Workers of the late Caesar Chavez has joined forces with a reinvigorated AFL-CIO in the second year of a campaign to unionize California's strawberry workers. Strawberry farmers have mobilized to respond with a large and vocal number of strawberry workers who are decidedly anti-union.
These developments seem more typical of a bygone era, yet it's very different this time around. Labor unions in this fight are acting more in concert. Twenty years go Chavez could not always count on the active support of the AFL-CIO, and he was often at war with the Teamsters' Union.
Today, the AFL-CIO has signaled a return to its organizing roots with the UFW at the center of its plans. President John Sweeney granted the UFW a seat on his Executive Council and pledged the union's prestige and resources behind the UFW's organizing drive. Rallies, demonstrations, and picketing are planned jointly by the AFL-CIO and the UFW to educate consumers, pressure growers, and increase union membership.
For its part, the UFW has also shown signs of change. Though its mission remains constant since Chavez's death in 1993, the UFW is using a more pragmatic approach in its dealings.
Before, the UFW showed greater success in winning elections than in achieving collective bargaining agreements for its workers. Of late, it has demonstrated increasing flexibility in its negotiations, allowing it to secure contracts with, among others, Myers Tomatoes, St. Supery Vineyards, and even its historic antagonist, Bruce Church, Inc.
For the grower community, these tactical adjustments by the UFW are small consolation. Farmers feel badly burned by the UFW, and their distrust is bone-deep. It is a distrust rooted deeply in events surrounding then Governor Jerry Brown's formation of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) in 1975. The farming community grudgingly accepted the Board's creation and maintained a guarded hope that this "experiment" in farm labor relations would provide a fair and even-handed forum for the resolution of farm labor disputes. The ALRB was viewed as a hopeful alternative to the work stoppages, boycotts, and labor strikes common then to California agriculture.
Within a few months of the ALRB's formation, however, the farming community quickly sensed it was sadly mistaken. Almost immediately, the new ALRB put farmers on the defensive. Far from providing a balanced representation of the agricultural community, a necessity if the new Board was to gain acceptance from the parties in conflict, Board appointees reflected an overwhelmingly pro-union slant.
In quick order, the Board on its own, without guidance or direction from the legislature, approved an "access rule," which for the first time allowed organizers to trespass on private property to recruit union workers. Though unions in other industrial sectors have long lobbied for such entree, to this day only farm labor organizers in California enjoy such access. For those who place a premium on private property rights, an uncompromising principle among farmers, the "access rule" went down hard. It is still a bitter pill for them today.
The Board also began to flesh out a little-understood feature of the new law, the "make-whole remedy," which assessed farmers heavy financial penalties if found to have bargained in bad faith with labor unions.
As the Board, General Counsel, and ALRB staff set about their work in those early days, the state's farming community felt besieged. The ALRB was labeled unapologetically pro-union. To say that farmers in California were disappointed with these developments is a severe understatement. Their profound sense of betrayal has colored their view of cooperation and accommodation with labor and the ALRB ever since.
The UFW sees the ALRB and its 21-year history quite differently, particularly since 1983 as Republicans have controlled the appointment process. It believes that the balance of economic and political power favors the grower community, whose viewpoint, it contends, dominates ultimate ALRB decision-making.
These perceptions and this history are important for us to understand, particularly as events play out along the Central Coast this year. The lives of farmers and farm workers alike are important. One cannot exist or function without the other. Also important to the state's economy is the health of agriculture, California's number one industry.
In the tumult of debate on farm labor issues, we often fail to recognize that farmers and farm workers share certain common fundamentals. Both appreciate the land and what it provides. Both know what it is like to work hard. Both desire a fair shake for themselves and their families.
As events unfold in the coming weeks, the ALRB will be asked once again to respond. How we do will say much about what we have learned in 20 years. If the promise of the ALRB is to be realized, we must provide all parties a forum and a process consistently balanced, even-handed, and fair.
For our part, the ALRB will be judged one case and one event at a time. The manner of our response will determine the legacy we leave behind.