United Farm Workers of America President Arturo S. Rodriguez issued the following statement from the union’s Keene, Calif. headquarters after the state Third District Court of Appeals issued a ruling upholding the historic UFW-sponsored 2002 binding mediation law.
For decades after California’s pioneering farm labor law was enacted, the UFW has organized farm workers but too many growers stubbornly refused to negotiate union contracts. The collective bargaining process wasn’t working.
In 2002, the Legislature remedied this injustice by allowing farm workers to bring in arbitrators to hammer out the terms of union contracts if impasses occur. The goal of the law is encouraging growers to negotiate in good faith.
The agricultural lobby argued in court that the law was unconstitutional. Today the appeals court decided the Legislature acted properly. The ruling is a complete victory for farm workers.
Originally passed in 1975, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act for the first time in the nation granted farm workers the right to organize and bargain with their employers. Beginning in the 1980s, there was no effective remedy when growers refused to bargain in good faith. Thousands of farm workers who organized and voted for the UFW never got the union contracts for which they voted.
What good is a law if it isn’t honored? So the UFW sponsored legislation in 2002 that was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis.
It is our hope that with this decision, the agricultural lobby will cease its virulent resistance to farm worker organizing and more growers will be encouraged to bargain in good faith.
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