Area Growers Fear Power May Erode Under Davis

As Gov.-elect Gray Davis prepares to take office, Ventura County growers are bracing for changes that some fear could rob them of their clout in Sacramento and stack the deck in favor of farm labor unions.

Among the earliest appointments Davis will make as he puts together a new state government are three members of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. The board, established in 1975, referees labor disputes and oversees union elections.

Just as important, Davis will have the chance to appoint a new general counsel, a politically sensitive position with the power to investigate and prosecute labor complaints.

Although growers say it’s too early to tell how those changes will play out locally, they worry that the board will evolve into a tool for organized labor, most notably the United Farm Workers union, which is in the midst of a historic campaign to reestablish its influence in California’s farm industry.

“What we are afraid of is the agency becoming heavily skewed against us,” said Santa Paula citrus rancher Richard Pidduck, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

“We hope the new appointees continue to take a balanced approach in representing the interests of both the labor side and the growers’ side,” he added. “We are looking for people who have a responsible view of the entire industry, not those just coming from a single interest or point of view.”

But labor groups say the state board has been anything but balanced during the past 16 years, arguing that back-to-back Republican administrations have gutted the agency’s resources and turned it against workers by appointing pro-grower representatives to the board and the general counsel’s position.

As a result, labor leaders say the Deukmejian and Wilson administrations rarely enforced the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the landmark legislation designed to “guarantee justice for all agricultural workers and stability in labor relations.”

“For more than a decade, the Republican-dominated board, and the general counsel’s position, have been very ineffective in protecting the rights of farm workers and enforcing the law,” said UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, who serves on the new governor’s transition team to provide guidance on agriculture and labor issues.

“We don’t need new laws; it’s just a question of enforcing what’s in existence,” he said. “We’re looking for the opportunity to get people appointed to the board who will be eager to do that.”

In many ways, the new appointments provide a critical test for an agency that has long struggled to become a credible force in the enforcement of farm labor law. Growers and labor groups are looking to the Davis administration to elevate the Agricultural Labor Relations Board into an agency they can rely on to fairly mediate disputes rather than one that blows with the prevailing political winds in Sacramento.

“The problem with the agency from day one is that it has been more of a political football than it should have been,” said board General Counsel Paul Richardson. “We need to earn credibility on both sides to be effective.”

Spurred by passage of the labor relations act in 1975, the board was formed by Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown to provide an evenhanded forum for the resolution of farm labor disputes.

It was a regulatory scheme unique in the nation, extending unprecedented legal protection to California’s farm workers.

Farmers Were on the Defensive

The general counsel’s office was set up to act as a district attorney, pursuing complaints of unfair labor practices filed by workers, growers and unions. The five-member board was established to function as an appellate court, with the final word in labor disputes.

The law also provided for secret ballot elections to determine whether farm workers wanted union representation, and it allowed organizers for the first time to go onto private property to recruit workers.

Almost immediately, farmers were put on the defensive. While hoping the board membership would include a balanced representation of the agricultural community, they argued that appointees tended to be pro-union and that the vast majority of their rulings favored labor interests.

Ventura citrus rancher Carolyn Leavens had a front-row seat as the new law took shape. Despite being a Republican, she was appointed by Brown to the governing board of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

“The whole thing just blew up,” said Leavens, whose family tends 800 acres of citrus and avocados in Ventura County. “Farmers were so angry at the way they were being treated, they were furious. Our position wasn’t considered at all; it was simply ignored.”

The tables were turned, however, when Brown left office in 1983. Under Gov. Deukmejian, labor leaders say, the board was loaded with pro-grower appointees. The agency also suffered sharp cuts to its staff and budget, hampering its enforcement of the law.

Where there were once upward of 200 staff members in regional offices across the state dedicated to pursuing complaints, the agency now has fewer than 70 employees in offices in El Centro, Visalia and Salinas.

During those years, hundreds of unfair labor practice charges filed by farm workers were dismissed without investigation, and many of those that did result in charges were settled for as little as 10 cents on the dollar, labor groups say.

After a while, workers stopped appealing to the agency for help, figuring they were just wasting their time.

“Decisions from the ALRB in favor of farm workers have been few and far between,” said Eileen McCarthy, an attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance in Oxnard, which provides legal help to farm workers. “We are hopeful that pending changes in the board will result in a more balanced view and that farm workers will benefit from that.”

Richardson concedes that the agency has suffered from a credibility problem since its inception, but says he has worked hard since his appointment in 1995 to ensure a balanced approach.

Since 1996, the agency has investigated 873 charges brought by farm workers or labor unions, and 109 have resulted in formal complaints. The agency has investigated 48 charges brought by growers during that period, with 10 resulting in complaints. Complaints are civil lawsuits that can result in fines, awards of back pay and other sanctions.

Although Richardson has stressed the need to evaluate each charge on its merits, he said it’s only natural that the agency come under fire, given that it is sandwiched between two highly competitive forces.

But he said no matter who is in control of the state Capitol, it’s essential that the board continue his evenhanded approach if it hopes to be viewed by both sides as an agency that can resolve labor disputes fairly.

“Twenty-three years out and this agency is still trying to earn credibility on both sides,” said Richardson, a former Placer County district attorney.

“I think we will be entering a new chapter with the Davis administration,” he said. “He will have the responsibility to determine whether this agency will be respected or whether it’s perceived to be one that pitches a particular way depending on who won the last election.”

Ironically, it could be Richardson himself who provides the first test for the new administration. UFW officials contend that Richardson’s four-year term ends in July, the anniversary of his appointment date, opening the door for Davis to appoint his own general counsel. But Richardson is refusing to leave early, saying he isn’t due to step down until August of 2000, four years after his confirmation by the Legislature.

For the UFW, which is in the midst of a three-year battle to unionize the state’s 20,000 strawberry growers, this issue could become pivotal.

UFW Says Board Not Supportive

With unprecedented backing from the AFL-CIO, the UFW has been trying to win the right to represent workers at the Coastal Berry Co., which farms 2,100 acres of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries in Monterey, Santa Cruz and Ventura counties.

But as that battle has heated up, UFW officials say they have gotten little support from Richardson’s ALRB. In fact, the agency last month dismissed charges filed by the UFW claiming that union supporters at Coastal Berry were threatened and intimidated by midlevel foremen and supervisors.

“It’s just another example of the shutdown in enforcement that has plagued the ALRB over the years,” said UFW spokesman Marc Grossman. “And it’s the general counsel who controls access to the law. If he never brings charges against anybody, it effectively shuts farm workers out of the system.”

In addition to pushing for Richardson’s early exit, UFW officials say they intend to lobby the Davis administration to make sound choices as they fill the three positions on the labor board.

But growers say they will exert an equal amount of pressure to ensure that the new governor fulfills campaign promises to appoint moderates, those more interested in applying the law than in repaying political favors.

“I’m hopeful that Gov. Davis does not do what Jerry Brown did in 1975,” said Rob Roy, president of the Ventura County Agricultural Assn. He said, however, that Rodriguez’s appointment to the transition team was not a good sign for farmers.

In addition to having argued cases before the labor board for more than two decades, Roy is chairman of the American Bar Assn.’s subcommittee on agricultural labor law, which produces an annual report on ALRB activities.

“I hope he endeavors to put people on the board with some balance and that they have knowledge of labor relations and labor law,” Roy said. “If he starts putting members of organized labor on there or people who are very pro-UFW, I think that’s going to send the wrong message.”

For her part, Leavens said she also hopes to see a labor board that will be fair to all parties, and perhaps one that can start healing the long-standing rift between workers and growers.

“My hope and belief is that we are going to grow up together and come to look on one another as allies,” she said. “We can’t get on without them and they can’t get on without us.”