The historic abuse of power the Agricultural Labor Relations Board has exerted over family-owned Gerawan Farming and its thousands of workers is illegal. Gerawan’s farm workers do not want union control of their workplace or work lives, but have been targeted by the United Farm Workers labor union and the ALRB since 2012 for takeover.

In May, the Court of Appeals ordered the stateAgricultural Labor Relations Board to count the workers’ decertification votes from a 2013 election, but the agency has ignored the order, and still wants to destroythe ballots and instead force a non-negotiated “contract” on the workers.

The workers have appealed to the legislative Latino Caucus, individual legislators, Governor Jerry Brown, and the California Supreme Court. Despite awaiting legal remedies, the Legislature is again doing the bidding of the United Farm Workers in an end run.

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Former Senator Isadore Hall, a Democrat who marched with the President of the United Farm Worker’s labor union, and publicly declared his solidarity with the UFW campaign against the Gerawan Farming employees, has been appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Hall’s confirmation hearing is March 1.

After losing a race for Congress in November 2016, Hall has announced he will make another run in 2018… while he is on the ALRB?

Much Opposition to Hall’s Appointment

“The ALRB wields extraordinary powers over California’s agricultural workers and growers,” said Dan Gerawan in a letter addressed to the Senate Rules… Read More

Removing all doubt that the California Agricultural Labor Relations Boardis a Marxist tool for unionization, William B. Gould IV, Gov.Jerry Brown’s appointed Chairman of the board, announced his resignation Friday, in a cranky letter complaining that farm workers don’t want to join the United Farmworkers Union.

Gould’s resignation also… Read More

How confident should Senators be when a governor’s appointee to the state Ag Labor Board faced opposition testimony with a line out the hearing room door, “and around the block,” but not one person attended in support?

A testy and contentious confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules Committee Monday for Genevieve Shiroma, a 17-year member of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, ended after extensive testimony with a proverbial “F-you” to farm workers, when lawmakers voted 3-2 along party lines to confirm… Read More

On Friday April 15, 2016 the three-member California Agricultural Labor Relations Board voted to set aside the November 5, 2013 decertification election of the United Farm Workersat Gerawan Farming, and destroy the Gerawan employees’ ballots.

In other words, the ALRB is saying, “We will protect employee’s rights by destroying their ballots?”

Acting as an arm of the union, the ALRB did this to not to protect the farm workers – as is the ARLB mission – but to protect the flailing United Farm Workers labor union. Against every bit of evidence to the contrary, in doing so, the ALRB has declared by default that the employer has somehow violated the law. But in reality, the ALRB has violated the law, as I’ve chronicled in hundreds of stories, for nearly four years now.

This decision punishes the Gerawan workers, and demonstrates just how… Read More

The United Farm Workers unionrecently admitted that their contracts do not provide a living wage. They did it in a room full of people.

I attended the conference UC Davis held April 17 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the the Agricultural Labor Relations Act. I nearly didn’t make it, as the conference was supposedly sold out prior to the deadline. But it quickly became apparent that leaders of the United Farm Workers union manipulated the event registration. The United Farm Workers labor union claimed it was bringing busloads of workers to the event, and reserved the seats. The day of the event, six workers showed up; there were more UFW employees at the conference than actual workers.

These are the tactics used by the desperate UFW, clinging to relevance by a thread. UFW membership is hovering at 3,300 members, according to Philip Martin, UC Davis Professor of Agricultural and… Read More