UFW Boycott Illegal, State Board Rules

The state Agricultural Labor Relations Board has ruled that the United Farm Workers violated state law in a boycott three years ago against Southern California grocery stores, restaurants and wholesalers supplied by a Ventura County egg distributor.

The ruling, issued Monday, said the UFW failed to abide by state laws that require unions to advise the public about the nature of a labor dispute when conducting a secondary boycott--an action directed at companies that do business with the actual target of a union’s protest.

The decision marks the first time the board has interpreted state agriculture labor laws that apply to secondary boycotts.

By limiting the use of the secondary boycott, the labor board has cut off one of the union’s last effective labor tactics, said Marty Morgenstern, chairman of the Center for Labor Relations and Education at the University of California, Berkeley. It is the latest of many decisions the board has made against the union since its members were appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian, Morgenstern said.

The 1986 labor dispute involved 250 workers at the Egg City chicken ranch in Moorpark. The employees were represented by the UFW until 1986, when they walked off the job in a dispute over wages and were replaced. The strike occurred after the ranch, citing severe financial problems, filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and cut wages by as much as 30%.

Other Targets

In the Egg City case, the board found that during a UFW picket on Nov. 22, 1986, of Country Eggs, a Compton wholesaler, signs carried by picketers did not disclose that Egg City was the target of the protest or what Country Eggs’ relationship was to Egg City.

Other secondary targets in the dispute included Coco’s and Bob’s Big Boy restaurants, and Hughes and Lucky markets. The decision states that any business harmed by the violation can seek compensation from the union.

Such boycotts or picketing are legal, within proscribed limits, under state and federal laws.

The ruling was criticized by attorneys for the UFW, who said they will appeal to the state Court of Appeal. “It’s a terrible decision,” said Dianna Lyons, an attorney for the UFW. “The way they interpret the statute is nonsensical.”

But Egg City attorney Rob Roy hailed it as “a major victory because it sets forth parameters under which a union can conduct a secondary boycott.”

The company, listed as the world’s largest chicken ranch in the 1986 Guinness Book of World Records, has since been reorganized and has paid its debts, said Arnold L. Kupetz, an attorney for Egg City during the bankruptcy proceedings.