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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.