Amicus brief argues California law deprives farmworkers of their Constitutional rights by imposing union contract against their will
Washington, D.C. (May 16, 2018) – Today the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is filing an amicus curiae brief with the United States Supreme Court for the Foundation and several employees of Gerawan Farming, urging the court to grant certiorari in Gerawan Farming, Inc. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB). The brief asks the Court to hear the challenge to California’s law that authorizes the state labor board to impose a union contract on a company and its workers against their will.
Although many states have separate labor laws that specifically cover agricultural workers, California’s law is unique in that it authorizes the state to impose union monopoly bargaining contracts, including so-called “union security” requirements that obligate farm workers to make payments to union officials or else be fired. In the Gerawan case pending before the Supreme Court, a state-appointed mediator imposed a forced dues requirement—that workers overwhelmingly opposed—for the benefit of union officials who hadn’t been heard from in nearly two decades.
As the brief explains, United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials abandoned any attempt to negotiate a union contract in 1995, after which workers successfully worked to determine the terms of their employment without the union for 17 years. Then, in 2012, UFW union officials returned and immediately invoked an amendment to California law authorizing an ALRB-appointed mediator to impose a contract if the union and company cannot reach an agreement.
After UFW officials announced their return, Gerawan workers moved to decertify the union. However, that effort was stifled when the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) refused to count the ballots cast in the decertification vote, leaving the union in power despite what workers believe was overwhelming opposition to union “representation.”
The Foundation’s brief argues that California’s agricultural labor law violates the workers’ constitutional rights by forcing upon them union monopoly representation of a union they oppose – something central to many labor statutes – and by imposing the union monopoly contract that includes forced union dues.
In a related case, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are also providing free legal representation to Uber and Lyft drivers challenging a Seattle ordinance designed to unionize the independent drivers. Like the California law at issue in Gerawan, the Seattle scheme authorizes a government official to impose a forced dues contract over the objections of the company and individual for-hire drivers who are compelled to accept union monopoly representation.
“The injustices Gerawan workers face every day – as a government-imposed contract forces them to pay dues to a union they overwhelmingly oppose– is evidence that the more power government grants to union bosses, the greater the infringement on the rights of individual employees,” stated National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “We hope the Supreme Court will take this case to establish legal limits to the coercive power that government can grant union officials over private employers and employees.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
