Farm Workers Win a Victory in Assembly

SACRAMENTO —  To shouts of “viva” and an outburst of applause from farm workers in the gallery, the Assembly voted Monday to submit agricultural labor contracts to binding arbitration when talks between unions and growers reach a deadlock.

If signed by Gov. Gray Davis, who according to a spokesman has concerns about it, the bill would mark the first time that the state’s landmark agricultural labor relations law will have been amended since it was enacted in 1975.

The bill presents a dicey political challenge to the Democratic governor as he runs for reelection, because he is seeking both to keep organized labor as a powerful ally and to persuade the business community that he is a friend who can be trusted with a second term.

The bill--SB 1736, by Senate leader John L. Burton (D-San Francisco)--was sponsored by the United Farm Workers of America and backed by organized labor. It was opposed by such influential agribusiness organizations as the California Farm Bureau Federation, Agricultural Council of California and Western Growers Assn.

Supporters of the United Farm Workers, founded by the late Cesar Chavez, view binding arbitration as a hammer that would force growers to reach agreements rather than face the risk of a third-party arbitrator imposing deals on them.

The United Farm Workers contends that major growers for years have refused to enter into contracts with the union, even though their employees have voted for them. They say growers stall merely by refusing to bargain in good faith.

Last year, Davis and the Legislature agreed to a system of binding arbitration for backstretch workers at racetracks by reclassifying them as “agricultural workers.” In exchange, track operators were allowed to expand their operations to include Internet and telephone betting.

But the UFW and their Democratic supporters in the Legislature insisted that farm workers who produce the food for Californians should be subject to the same binding arbitration benefits as backstretch workers.

Under the bill, a union and grower could seek mediation to resolve differences. But if an impasse occurred, either side could petition the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board to impose a binding settlement, subject to court challenge.

Farm labor advocates say passage of the bill could be especially important to workers embroiled in a long-running contract dispute with owners of Southern California’s largest mushroom farm.

Workers at the Pictsweet Mushroom Farm in Ventura have been without a contract since 1987, and talks in recent years between the company and the United Farm Workers have failed to progress.

The UFW first won a contract at the mushroom farm in 1975 in one of the first elections held under the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, a state law adopted that same year to referee farm labor disputes and oversee union elections.

The union maintained contracts with a series of owners at the Ventura plant over the years, but that ended in 1987 when Tennessee-based United Foods Inc. bought the facility.

Since then, UFW officials say they have tried a number of times to get a new contract but have made little headway in their demands for higher wages, dental and vision coverage, less-costly medical insurance and a pension plan.

“Pictsweet has been a poster child for this legislation,” UFW spokesman Marc Grossman said after the Assembly’s vote. “The right to organize doesn’t mean anything unless farm workers get union contracts. This [legislation] would mean arbitration instead of litigation, so that Pictsweet workers get a contract.”

A handful of workers from the Ventura plant were in Sacramento on Monday to urge lawmakers to support the bill.

“This law is very important to us,” said mushroom picker Manuel Salomon, 59, who has worked at the farm for more than two decades. “It would help us get what we have been asking for, which is a union contract.”

Salomon joined about 100 agricultural employees wearing denims and red shirts bearing the black eagle logo of the United Farm Workers, who filled the gallery of the Assembly chamber in a show of support for the legislation. They erupted into applause and cheers when the bill was approved 49 to 22 on a near-party-line vote.

The measure was returned to the Senate, where routine approval is expected of technical amendments made in the Assembly. It then would go to Davis, who has not taken a position on it, said spokesman Russ Lopez.

Lopez said the governor has been “very supportive of farm workers,” but that Davis had “some concerns” about the bill and wanted to “see what its [economic] impact would be on the business community.”

During an intense debate, Assemblyman Dean Florez of Atwater, a Democrat whose San Joaquin Valley district includes vast agribusiness enterprises, argued that farm workers were promised by the state’s landmark agricultural labor relations law nearly three decades ago that they would have equal bargaining power with growers.

But he said because growers have refused to negotiate contracts with the United Farm Workers, tens of thousands of laborers are denied union wages, benefits and other protection to which they are entitled.

“Today we are trying to fulfill that promise,” he told the Assembly, noting that Latino voters “are watching. They are watching the vote today. They want fairness. They want equity.”

However, Assemblyman Robert Pacheco (D-Walnut), who said he had toiled as a vegetable picker, said he was “sympathetic to the needs of farm workers. But this bill bothers me.” He complained that while it applied to agricultural employers, it did not apply to labor contractors hired by employers.

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Times staff writer Fred Alvarez contributed to this report.