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Farming giant Wonderful Co., United Farm Workers caught in legal fight over union law

United Farm Workers supporters protest outside the Kern County Superior Court on June 13. The Wonderful Co. is suing the state to overturn a law streamlining the unionization process for farm workers.
Joshua Yeager
/
KVPR
United Farm Workers supporters protest outside the Kern County Superior Court on June 13, 2024. The Wonderful Co. is suing the state to overturn a law streamlining the unionization process for farm workers.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Demonstrators flocked to the Kern County Superior Court on Wednesday to protest a case that could have major ramifications for farm labor organizers in the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.

California farming giant Wonderful Co. is suing the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board in a legal challenge to the 2022 law that streamlines the union voting process for farm workers.

Assembly Bill 2183 enables union organizers to conduct union authorization votes at a place of their choosing, in a process dubbed card check. Union votes were previously conducted at the workplace under supervision from both employer and union representatives.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and his predecessors had vetoed previous iterations of the law. The Democratic leader relented following a farmworker march to the state capitol in 2022 and pressure from even President Joe Biden – who keeps a bust of United Farm Workers union co-founder Cesar Chavez in the Oval Office.

Dozens of UFW supporters carried signs outside the Bakersfield courthouse in sweltering heat early Wednesday as they yelled “Sì se puede” and other pro-labor chants.

“We fought too hard and too long to let a company and group of people who don’t have scruples take it away,” farmworker Xochitl Nunez said. “It’s about respect and the right to organize without intimidation.”

Counterprotesters – workers who say they don’t want to be part of the union – also took to the courtroom parking lot, with chants and signs of their own, some of which read in Spanish: “Listen to our voices!”

Not all workers on board with union

Employees with Wonderful Nurseries participate in a counterprotest outside the Kern County Superior Court on June 13. The signs read "Listen to our voices!! Let us vote no union!"
Joshua Yeager
/
KVPR
Employees with Wonderful Nurseries participate in a counterprotest outside the Kern County Superior Court on June 13, 2024. The signs read "Listen to our voices!! Let us vote no union!"
United Farm Workers supporters protest outside the Kern County Superior Court on June 13. The Wonderful Co. is suing the state to overturn a law streamlining the unionization process for farm workers.
Joshua Yeager
/
KVPR
United Farm Workers supporters protest outside the Kern County Superior Court on June 13, 2024. The Wonderful Co. is suing the state to overturn a law streamlining the unionization process for farm workers.

Wednesday’s hearing in Kern County is the latest in a bout of legal jujitsu now spanning several judges and state agencies.

A separate case was started after more than 100 employees with Wonderful Nurseries in Wasco filed affidavits alleging the UFW misled them into signing union authorization cards while it was supposed to help them obtain a $600 pandemic relief benefit. The claims followed the March certification of the UFW chapter, which represents more than 600 employees at the Wasco nursery. UFW denies the allegations.

“We don’t want the union. We were robbed,” said Irma Rubio, a custodian at Wasco Nurseries. “We went for $600, and that was it. They lied to us.”

An independent investigator for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board is reviewing allegations of misconduct from both Wonderful and the UFW surrounding the union vote.

Ramifications of court challenge to union law

This week’s case in the Kern County Superior Court represents a challenge to the underlying card-check law itself.

In court, attorneys for Wonderful Co. alleged their due process rights were violated when the ALRB refused to hand over signed union cards to the employer, likening the process to “Kabuki theater.”

The UFW and ALRB argued that decades of case law supports this precedent, which is in place to protect workers from possible retaliation, their attorneys said. They also questioned whether a superior court should have jurisdiction over the case.

If Wonderful’s request for an injunction is granted, both the ongoing ARLB hearing and card-check law itself would be put on pause while the case progresses. Judge Bernard C. Barmann, Jr. is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks.

A third hearing is also set to take place before an administrative law judge after the ALRB’s general counsel investigated Wonderful Nurseries in April and found several alleged violations at the workplace.

Those included allegations that consultants for Wonderful helped draft union revocations for employees and held anti-union meetings during work hours.

Joshua Yeager is a Report For America corps reporter covering Kern County for KVPR.