The Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) enforces the collective bargaining rights of agricultural workers as spelled out in landmark legislation passed in 1975. The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act created the five-member board, appointed by the governor, to conduct secret ballot elections allowing farm workers to decide on union representation during collective bargaining, and to investigate, prosecute and adjudicate unfair labor practice disputes.

Agriculture Labor Relations Act (ALRB website) (pdf)

Hourly workers in the United States were given their first legal protection in the 1930s, but the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 specifically excluded farm workers. So-called Bracero guest worker programs in the ‘40s and ‘50s brought a large number of Mexican workers to U.S. fields but ended in 1964.

In 1966, two small unions—one led by co-founders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta—joined to form the United Farm Workers (UFW). The next 10 years were marked by a series of strikes against land owners,  fighting between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the UFW over worker representation, and various failed attempts at enacting legislation guaranteeing collective bargaining rights for farm laborers.

The UFW was a leader in the five-year Delano Grape Strike beginning in September 1965. The strike began as an action by Filipino farmworkers and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and quickly spread. Chavez began a 300-mile pilgrimage in March 1966 from Delano to Sacramento to publicize the strike. By 1970, the UFW had secured a collective bargaining agreement with the table-grape growers.

Chavez brought national attention to the plight of farmworkers through the use of aggressive, but nonviolent civil rights actions. He fasted for 25 days in 1968 to promote nonviolence, followed by fasts in 1970 and 1972.

As the Delano Grape Strike wound down, the UFW found itself engaged in competition with the Teamsters union for representation of farmworkers. Growers found contracts signed with the Teamsters more to their liking. The result was a series of mass pickets, boycotts, and strikes beginning in August 1970, that came to be known as the “Salad Bowl” strike. 

Enthusiasm for a farm worker labor law grew with the election of Democrat Governor Jerry Brown in 1974 and the following year he signed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law.

The act defined the rights, powers and duties of both agricultural employers and their employees, and labor organizations representing or desiring to represent such employees. It defined what constituted an unfair labor practice and established the five-member Agricultural Labor Relations Board, appointed by the governor. The board was given the power to oversee union elections and investigate alleged unfair labor practices. It largely mirrors the National Labor Relations Act in calling for secret ballot elections and laying out rules for picking collective bargaining units. The act also stipulates a mediation process and other remedies available to the board.

The board decided 63 labor cases brought before it in 1976, its first full year of operation. By 1978, the number had grown to 108. The election of Republican Governor George Deukmejian in 1982 altered the makeup of the board and its operations. Deukmejian called his predecessor’s agricultural policy “a mess” and said it was based on “outright antagonism toward California’s No. 1 industry.”

“If our new approach appears to be favoring farmers,” Deukmejian told an appreciative audience at a  Farm Bureau Political Action Committee fund-raiser in 1983, “maybe that’s because you’ve never been dealt with fairly before.”

Deukmejian, who had received around $1 million in campaign donations from growers, was instrumental in cutting the board’s budget 27%. He appointed Jyrl Ann James-Montgomery, a lawyer from a firm that represented growers, as chairman, and David Sterling, a former lawmaker who supported numerous grower-backed bills, as the board’s general counsel. By 1984, the ALRB caseload had shrunk to 52 and stood at 18 by the time Deukmejian left office in 1991.

A failed attempt to amend the labor relations act occurred in 2000 when Governor Gray Davis vetoed an attempt to include stable hands at horse racing tracks among its covered workers. In 2003, the act was amended to provide mandatory mediation in certain circumstances where the parties have not reached a collective bargaining agreement.

Governor Davis was recalled from office in 2003 and four times over the next seven years Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the UFW’s signature legislative objective—card-check—which would have made it easier for workers to be organized. But just before leaving office in 2010, he appointed the author of the legislation, Democratic state Senator Carol Migden, to the ALRB.

Early in his second tour of duty as governor in 2011, Jerry Brown vetoed legislation that would have allowed workers to vote for or against unionization by signing a card rather than casting a secret ballot. The process, favored by unions, is known as “card-check.” 

Months later, Brown signed legislation that allowed the ALRB to certify a union when it finds a grower has acted illegally to affect the outcome of a union election. The legislation also accelerated the mediation process for workers in disputes with their employer.

Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation (ALRB website)

Labor Relations in California Agriculture: 1975-2000 (by Professor Philip Martin, University of California, Davis)

The ALRB –Twenty Years Later (by Tracy E. Sagle, The National Educational Law Center) (pdf)

Chavez Says Deukmejian Is Crippling Farm Law (by Cesar Chavez, Los Angeles Times op-ed)

Deukmejian Tries to Rein in Farm Labor Board (by Marshall Ingwerson, Christian Science Monitor)

Natural Protest: Essays on the History of American Environmentalism (by Michael Egan)

Case Decision Index (ALRB website)

Deukmejian: The Canal Is Dead and Agriculture Isn’t (by Martha Freeman, Modesto Bee)

Organized Labor Sowing Seeds To Fundamentally Change California Agricultural Labor Relations (Michael P. Burns, attorney at Horan, Lloyd, Karachale, Dyer, Schwartz, Law & Cook)

Governor Acts on Wide Range of Farm-Related Bills (by Kate Campbell, AgAlert)

Migden Appointment: A Surprise, Even by Capitol Standards (by Christine Mai-Duc, Capitol Weekly)

The five-member Agricultural Labor Relations Board has two main functions: pursuing investigations of alleged unfair labor practices and conducting elections to determine union representation. It interprets and enforces provisions of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which created the board itself in 1975. Board members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.

The board does not decide matters of workers compensation, health and safety, discrimination, safe housing or wage law violations. Those are handled by other state and federal agencies. The ALRB, which is headquartered in Sacramento, has regional offices in Visalia, El Centro and Salinas.

Investigations

When a charge of an unfair labor practice is filed, the board’s general counsel investigates and if the charge is substantiated issues a formal complaint. The board then has the option of conducting a hearing itself or turning the case over to an administrative law judge. After a decision is rendered, any party may appeal the findings of the hearing to the state Court of Appeal. If a review is not sought or is denied, the board can seek enforcement of the initial decision in state Superior Court.

If it is determined that remedial action is necessary, the board can hold supplemental proceedings to determine the amount of liability and craft a solution. These compliance hearings are generally held before an administrative law judge and the decisions can also be appealed to the Court of Appeal. Enforcement ultimately lies with the Superior Court.

Elections  

The board, through its regional offices, is responsible for conducting elections to determine if a majority of employees wish to be represented by a labor organization or, if already represented, whether they wish to continue to have that representation. Elections are held within seven days from the date a petition for election is filed and within 48 hours in the case of a strike. A party that believes an election should not have been conducted or was unfairly conducted may file an objection with the board’s executive secretary. If the executive secretary determines that a prima facie case has been made, he turns the matter over to an administrative law judge who, in the capacity of investigative hearing examiner, determines whether the board should certify the election. That  decision can be appealed to the board and further court review is limited to cases where an unfair labor practice based on the certification is alleged. 

The board publishes all of its decisions and orders in an online searchable database and posts annual reports after presenting them to the Legislature.

About the Board (ALRB website)

Fact Sheet (ALRB website)

The ALRB’s $4.9 million budget is split between board administration and the general counsel. The board spends about $2.1 million holding evidentiary hearings, promulgating regulations and administering mandatory mediation law. The general counsel spends the rest supervising and personnel in regional offices who are responsible for conduction union elections, investigating and prosecuting alleged unfair labor practices and seeking compliance with final board orders.

The board is funded exclusively with money from the state General Fund.

2011-12 Budget (Ebudget)

3-Year Budget (pdf) 

It’s Not Card-Check, but . . .

Just a few months after Governor Jerry Brown vetoed union-backed card-check legislation that would have made unionizing of agricultural workers easier, he signed a bill that would allow the ALRB to certify a union election if they determine a grower intimidated workers in the election process.

“It's not what we want, not what we feel we really need to benefit a large number of farmworkers,” said UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. “But it's an improvement over what we had before.”

Growers were not happy. “We're not pleased with the bill and we don't think this law was justified. That said, we recognize that it's not card-check,” said California Association of Winegrape Growers President John Aguirre. Growers expressed concern about how the ALRB would interpret what constituted intimidation despite reassurances from the ALRB that misconduct would have to be egregious.

The law also made it easier to receive injunctive relief from the courts to reinstate fired employees if there is an unfair labor practice charge involved.

CA Has New Law to Stop Intimidation of Farmworkers (by Gosia Wozniacka, Associated Press)

Punjabi Farmworkers

A 2007 conflict between growers and farmworkers in the Sacramento River valley introduced the public to a little-known fact: thousands of field workers traced their roots to South Asia, not south of the U.S. border.

An investigative report by India-West alleged violations of safety and labor codes in several Indian American-owned orchards, which took the ALRB by surprise. “We have to admit, we've had no contact with the workers from that community,” ALRB Assistant General Counsel Ed Blanco told India-West. “We had some contact with the (Indian American) growers involving some Mexican workers, but that was in 1990.” 

Census data indicated that about 2,000 Punjabi farmworkers lived in Sutter and Yuba County and many of them spent at least a few months during the harvest season working in Punjabi-owned orchards. India-West said that records indicated that although less than 1% of growers are South Asian, they are the targets of 5% of civil actions. A Yuba-Sutter County trade association official estimated that Punjabi Americans made up 15% of local farm labor force and said they often lack English language skills.

Blanco said the ALRB was planning an outreach program to let people know their rights and what assistance might be available to them. But Blanco pointed out the ALRB was limited in what it could do. “We can only go onto farms in certain situations—when we go through a case and win, or if workers want to form a union.” 

The ALRB 2007-08 annual report noted that it was extending efforts to work with non-Spanish speaking sector of farmworkers and that materials were being translated into Hmong and Punjabi languages.

California Tries to Reach Out to Punjabi Farmworkers (by Ketaki Gokhale, India West)

The Rights of Punjabi Farmworkers (The Langar Hall)  

2007-2008 Agricultural Labor Relations Board Report to the Legislature (ALRB website) (pdf)

Schwarzenegger Nominee Rejected

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rescinded his month-old appointment of former Republican Assemblywoman Sharon Runner to the ALRB in 2009 when it became clear that the state Senate was not going to confirm the pick. The selection met with enormous opposition from labor advocates.

United Farm Workers spokeswoman Maria Machuca said, “The agricultural labor law is designed to protect farmworkers, and people who have consistently voted against farmworkers have no business sitting on the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.”

Runner voted against a bill while in the Assembly in 2005 that would have set strict rules for the provision of water, shade and work breaks for fieldworkers. The proposal, which was introduced after some farmworkers died of heat-related problems in the fields, did not pass.

Schwarzenegger immediately appointed Runner to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

Potentially Harmful Appointee Steps Down After Successful Email Campaign (National Farm Worker Ministry)

Farmworker Union Opposes Schwarzenegger Appointee (by Juliet Williams, Associated Press)

Schwarzenegger Appointee Quits Agricultural Labor Board (by Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times):

Card-Check

Jerry Brown was the newly-elected governor in 1975 when he signed legislation creating the Agricultural Labor Relations Act that extended to farmworkers the right to secret-ballot unionization elections and empowered the United Farm Workers efforts to organize workers.

So it surprised a number of people when in 2011 he vetoed legislation championed by the union for years that would make it easier to organize workers. Brown vetoed the “card-check” bill that would have allowed for the automatic certification of a union that gathered card signatures from more than 50% of an employer’s workers. No ballot vote would be required.

Card-check is not a new concept. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation on multiple occasions that would have allowed farmworkers to use it. On the federal level, the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007 would have amended the National Labor Relations Act to allow automatic union certification if more than 50% of employees signed up to organize. The legislation passed the House of Representatives, but was filibustered by Republicans. And the National Labor Relations Board has made regulatory adjustments over the years that allow limited use of card-check in certain circumstances.

But California’s agricultural workers aren’t affected by the federal machinations. They have their own debate.

National Labor Relations Board Issues Decisions in Two Significant Cases Addressing Protection of New Collective-Bargaining Relationships (National Labor Relations Board)

On the Left

Supporters of card-check say it would allow farmworkers to unionize with less intimidation from employers. They say the current system is rigged in favor of employers, by allowing them to propagandize against unions in the leadup to a vote, and ferrot out who supported unionizing in order to bully them with threats of lost work, firing of family members or deportation.

Intimidation is not just some shadowy, unproven threat. George Miller,  former chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, said, “Although it is illegal, one-quarter of employers facing an organizing drive have been found to fire at least one worker who supports a union. In fact, employees who are active union supporters have a one-in-five chance of being fired for legal union activities.”

Changes in national and state laws over the years have substantially eroded the ability of workers to organize, resulting in dramatically fewer unionized workers. Around 35% of the American workforce in the ‘50s was unionized, compared to 7.5% today. Many believe that is a direct cause of erosion of the middle class, huge income disparity favoring the wealthiest 1%, diminished health care and lower wages.

Opponents of card-check who call it a job-killer, like the national Chamber of Commerce,  put the lie to their claims that they only care about protecting workers cherished right to a secret-ballot. Card-check would economically empower workers and restore some of the benefits lost over the last two decades. 

Ultimately, this is a debate about the value of unions. Those who don’t value them and would like to see them disappear entirely find card-check threatening. Those who favor card-check may not consider it the ideal vehicle for allowing workers the unimpeded right to organize, but, none the less, find that a worthy objective.

How Big Money and Bad Politics Are Destroying the Great American Middle Class (by Ed Schultz)

Brown Vetoes “Card-Check” Bill that Would Make Unionizing Farm Workers Easier (by Mike Rowe and Adam Weintraub, Associated Press)

Brown Vetoes Card-Check Legislation for Farmworkers (by Marisa Lagos, San Francisco Chronicle)

Senate Passes Steinberg Bill to Help Farmworkers Organize, Enforce Workplace Laws (Senator Darrell Steinberg press release)

Card Check Bill for California Farm Workers Heads to Governor’s Desk (by R.M. Arrieta, In These Times)

On the Right

Agriculture was a $37.5 billion industry in California in 2010 and the California Chamber of Commerce identified the card-check bill eventually vetoed by Jerry Brown as a “job killer.” Raising labor costs in stressful economic times could cause the worst harm to those who can least afford it: the poor, for whom food is a disproportionate part of the budget.

Card-check essentially eliminates the secret-ballot from the voting process. Although Kentucky held out until 1891 before swapping the oral ballot for one in secret, it’s been a staple in American elections for a long time. Like supporters of card-check, its critics also speak of intimidation as a significant factor, but they are worried about union intimidation of workers. Without the protection of a secret ballot, workers would have to identify themselves on one side of the issue or the other and be subject to public, or private, pressure. The process would be rife with misrepresentation of the facts by unions that might be more concerned with their power than the rights and well-being of the workers.

The Employee Free Choice Act - the “Card Check” Bill (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)

​CalChamber-Opposed “Card Check” for Farm Workers On Assembly Floor (California Chamber of Commerce)

Card Check Would End Secret Union Ballot (by Katy Grimes, Cal Watchdog)

Governor Schwarzenegger Preserves Secret Ballot Elections in Agriculture (by James W. Sullivan, attorney at Lombardo & Gilles) (pdf)

“Card check” Empowers Unions, Not Union Workers (Los Angeles Times editorial)

Jerry Brown’s Card-Check Bill Veto Surprises Both Sides (by Harry Cline, Farm Press Blog)

Obama And Big Labor (by Shikha Dalmia, Forbes)

Card-Check (Labor Union Report)

Guadalupe G. Almaraz,  2008 – 2009

Irene Raymundo, 2006 – 2007

Genevieve Shiroma, 1999 – 2005

Michael B. Stoker, 1995 – 1998

Bruce J. Janigian, 1990 – 1995

Gregory L. Gonot, 1989 (acting)

Benjamin G. Davidian, 1987 – 1989. Davidian is a lawyer and longtime Republican political insider who left the ALRB to succeed controversial Harold Ezell as director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. After a tumultuous tenure at the INS, Governor Pete Wilson named Davidian chairman of the California Fair Political Practices  (FPPC) in 1991. Months after returning to private law practice in 1995, Davidian became embroiled in controversy when he represented Governor Wilson’s Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Henry J. Voss before the FPPC in a high-profile conflict-of-interest case involving Voss’s undisclosed income from private farming interests. Voss ended up being fined $21,000 by the FPPC and resigned. Davidian is now a Sacramento Superior Court judge, appointed in 2009 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

John P. McCarthy, 1987 (acting)

Jyrl Ann James-Massengale, 1984 – 1986. James-Massengale, appointed by Governor Deukmejian, was the first woman and the first African-American appointed to the board. The 31-year-old Democrat had worked as an attorney for a Los Angeles law firm that represented growers.

Alfred H. Song, 1982 – 1984. Song became the first Asian-American elected to the California Legislature when he won an Assembly seat in 1961. The Hawaiian native of Korean ancestory moved to the state Senate in 1966 where he held leadership positions until 1978, when he was tied to a probe by the FBI into political wrongdoing. Although no charges were filed, stories linking him to an illegal ambulance-chasing ring and a country club membership paid for by a lobbyist led to Song’s crushing defeat for re-election. Afterward, he served in a number of political patronage jobs, including positions on the Medical Board of California and the California Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board.

Herbert A. Perry, 1981 – 1982  (acting)

Gerald A. Brown, 1976 – 1980

Roger M. Mahony, 1975 – 1976. The future Catholic Church cardinal was the newly-appointed auxiliary bishop of Fresno when Governor Jerry Brown tapped him as the first chairman of the ALRB. Mahoney was named bishop of Stockton in 1980 by Pope John Paul II, was promoted to archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985 and cardinal in 1991. He retired in April 2010.