Chapter Two: Labor on the Farm
A new chapter in agricultural labor relations history is about to be played out in the strawberry fields of the Central Coast. Under new leadership, the late Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers 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 antiunion.
These developments seem more typical of a bygone era, yet it’s different this time around.
Labor unions in this fight are acting more in concert. Twenty years ago, 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 resources behind this campaign. Rallies and picketing are planned jointly to educate consumers, pressure growers and increase union membership.
The UFW also shows signs of change. Though its mission remains constant, the UFW has taken a more pragmatic approach in its dealings since Chavez’s death in 1993. Before, the UFW showed greater success in winning elections than in achieving collective bargaining agreements. Of late, it has demonstrated increasing flexibility in its negotiations, allowing it to secure contracts in recent months with 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’s a distrust rooted in events surrounding then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s formation of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 1975. Farmers grudgingly accepted the board’s creation but maintained hope that this “experiment” in farm labor relations would provide a fair and evenhanded forum for the resolution of farm labor disputes. The ALRB was seen as a better alternative than the work stoppages, boycotts and strikes then common in California agriculture.
Almost immediately, however, the 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.
Without guidance or direction from the Legislature, the new board approved an “access rule” that for the first time allowed organizers to trespass on private property to recruit union workers. Though unions in other industrial sectors long have 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 still is a bitter pill.
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 they were found to have bargained in bad faith with labor unions.
To say that farmers were disappointed with these developments would be a severe understatement. Their profound sense of betrayal has colored their view of cooperation and accommodation with labor and the ALRB ever since.
This history is important to understand as events play out this spring. The lives of farmers and farm workers alike are important. One cannot exist or function without the other.
We often fail to recognize that farmers and farm workers share certain fundamentals: an appreciation of the land and what it can provide, an ability to work hard and a desire for a fair shake in dealings with each other.
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.
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.
