Wonderful Co. sues California over law aimed at making it easier for farmworkers to unionize

SAN DIEGO– One of California’s most influential agricultural companies filed a lawsuit against the state Monday to halt a controversial law to help farm workers unionize. The law that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom reluctantly signed two years ago after pressure from the White House.

The action of the Wonderful Co. comes as they battle the United Farm Workers over a newly formed UFW local of 640 workers at one of their companies. The $6 billion company, founded by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, who have donated to President Joe Biden and Newsom, makes a host of products recognizable to most grocery store consumers, including Halos tangerines, Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful pomegranate juice and Fiji Water Brands.

Agricultural workers are not covered by federal rules for labor organization in the United States. But California, which harvests much of the country’s produce, passed a law in 1975 and created a special board to protect their right to unionize. That came after the legendary work of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to organize farm workers across California under what would become the United Farm Workers.

But unionization of farmworkers has declined dramatically in the years since, and today few such workers are organized in California.

The new law allows farmworkers to unionize by gathering a majority of signatures without holding an election at a polling place — a requirement that advocates say protects workers from employers who pressure or try to retaliate against workers who vote to join a to join a trade union. A union is formed when more than half of the employees sign an authorization card.

Wonderful argues that the law is unconstitutional because it goes too far in excluding employers from the process.

Newsom’s office said it was reviewing the lawsuit before responding and added his statement from the moment he signed the legislation: “California’s farmworkers are the lifeblood of our state, and they have the fundamental right to to unite and stand up for themselves in the workplace.”

Agriculture industry leaders have argued that the lack of a secret ballot under the law leaves workers vulnerable to coercion by unions and the elections open to fraud. Gorgeous said that under the previous system, employers and union representatives were present at the polling stations to ensure a transparent process.

So far, four unions have formed under the new law. No other company has taken legal action. Wonderful said it is best equipped to lead the fight as other companies are much smaller.

The law does not require union authorization cards to be dated or for an employee to identify his or her employer, Wonderful said in the lawsuit.

Wonderful said there is no independent verification process under the law to prove majority support for a union, which violates due process rights.

Wonderful said it is also asking the Kern County Superior Court to issue an injunction to prevent the law from being enforced until the court rules on its claim that the law is unconstitutional.

Wonderful is against the clock.

By law, once a union is certified, employers must enter into collective bargaining within 90 days, Wonderful said in the lawsuit. That would be June 3 for the newly formed union at Wonderful Nurseries in Wasco, California, which was certified by the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

Wonderful filed a complaint with the board, saying the employees did not want a union. The company says many workers believed the cards they signed gave access to $600 payments under a federal pandemic relief program administered by the UFW, the largest farmworker union in the US. The UFW denied the accusation.

The UFW called the lawsuit “unfortunate but not surprising.” The union said the Agricultural Labor Relations Board filed an unfair labor practice charge against Wonderful on April 22, accusing it of requiring workers to attend a meeting to discuss whether their signatures on the authorization cards they used to form the union to be established would be withdrawn.

“Wonderful Nurseries now wants to get rid of the law that protects farm workers,” said UFW spokesperson Elizabeth Strater.

The case will be presented to an administrative judge who will take testimony from employees during a weeklong hearing.

Wonderful Nurseries claims the board has failed to ensure due process for the unit’s 60 permanent employees and as many as 1,500 seasonal workers. The company’s only unionized employees are at Wonderful Nurseries, which grows table grapes, wine grapes and other plants. According to its website, the company has approximately 10,000 employees.

Wonderful said its employees are well paid and that the 1975 protections have worked.

Before Newsom signed the new law in 2022, he and his two predecessors vetoed similar legislation over concerns about the voting process. The Democratic governor had announced plans to veto it again in 2022, but he changed course after Biden announced his support for the change. He signed it on the condition that another method of unionizing, through mail-in ballots, was later abolished.

Biden, who keeps a bust of Chavez in the Oval Office, said in a 2022 statement that “in the state with the largest population of farmworkers, the least we owe them is an easier path to a free and fair choice.” to organize a union.”

_____

Taxin reported from Orange County, California.