NLRB Accuses Chavez Union of Illegal Acts in Egg City Strike
National Labor Relations Board officials Friday accused the United Farm Workers union of violating federal labor laws during a strike at a Ventura County egg ranch in what are believed to be the first complaints issued by the agency against Cesar Chavez’s union.
In the complaints, filed by staff members with the NLRB’s office in Los Angeles, the agency contends that the UFW unlawfully coerced workers at Egg City by threatening to expel from the union those who do not support the strike. The complaints also accuse the union of illegal boycott activities, such as picketing Egg City customers not directly involved in the labor dispute.
The agency is expected to seek a restraining order next week in federal court. If granted, the UFW may be forced to curb its boycott of restaurants and supermarkets that buy from Egg City. The boycott is the union’s primary weapon in the 4-month-old stike.
UFW officials called the allegations meaningless, arguing that the NLRB has no jurisdiction over the workers. The union contends that the workers it represents at the ranch are agricultural employees and thus are governed by state farm labor laws, which are enforced by the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, rather than the national labor laws that the NLRB enforces.
“We are incapable of being guilty of these allegations,” said Dianna Lyons, a UFW attorney in Sacramento.
About 250 workers at Egg City near Moorpark, listed as the world’s largest chicken ranch in the Guinness Book of World Records, walked off the job after the financially troubled ranch cut wages by $2 an hour, or as much as 30% for some workers. The wage cut came one month after the ranch filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U. S. Bankruptcy Code.
Attorneys for the UFW and Egg City said they cannot recall an NLRB complaint ever being issued against the union, whose labor disputes usually are arbitrated by the state ALRB.
The move by the NLRB staff makes even murkier the legal issues involved in the strike. Two weeks ago, NLRB officials in Washington issued an opinion saying the agency has jurisdiction at Egg City because it believes nearly 100 ranch workers perform commercial work, such as processing eggs from other ranches, rather than agricultural work.
If upheld in court, that could mean that some union boycott activities in the strike, such as picketing supermarkets, are illegal under federal law, which prohibits boycotts of parties that aren’t directly involved in a labor dispute.
State farm labor law allows such actions, so-called “secondary boycotts,” which Chavez has made a key weapon in his disputes with growers. In their boycott, Egg City workers have targeted restaurants, the Lucky supermarket chain and small independent markets, mostly in Latino neighborhoods, where support for Chavez and the union is strongest.
The union has told the NLRB in a letter that it will not represent any workers eventually determined to be commercial employees.
