Law Professor Chosen to Head Farm Labor Panel

Gov. George Deukmejian announced Wednesday the appointment of Bruce J. Janigian of Sacramento to replace Ben G. Davidian, who resigned as chairman of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

Janigian, 39, has been a Fulbright professor of law at the University of Salzburg, Austria, since the fall of 1989.

The five-member board was created in 1975 to set up collective bargaining for farm workers. For years the growers contended that appointees of Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. gave the board a pro-worker bias. But since Deukmejian’s election in 1982, the workers have contended that his appointees have given it a pro-grower bias. The last Brown appointee left the board last year.

Janigian earned degrees from UC Berkeley, the Hastings College of Law and George Washington University. He has been a commissioner for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Court of Military Review, an attorney adviser for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and deputy director and chief counsel for the state Employment Development Department.

He is a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve and an adjunct professor of law at the McGeorge School of Law.