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Katy Grimes

On Labor Day, CA Democrats Up To Old Labor Abuses With Gerawan Workers

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.

Read More

Katy Grimes

Confirmation of Genevieve Shiroma to the Corrupt ALRB Flies Through Senate

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” – Joseph Stalin

Despite damning evidence of bias, and the disgraceful behavior of a state official who sits in judgment of others, theState Senateconfirmed Genevieve Shiroma’s reappointment to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board 26-11, once again proving the Democrat Party is no longer Democratic.

In California, the Democrat Party now adheres to Joseph Stalin’s rule book. In April Shiroma, one of thethree-memberCalifornia Agricultural Labor Relations Board,… Read More

Katy Grimes

Fraudulent Confirmation Hearing for ALRB’s Genevieve Shiroma

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

Katy Grimes

Ag Labor Board Orders Employees’ Ballots Destroyed To Silences Farm Workers

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

Katy Grimes

ALRB Board Ties to Dem Political Demagogue Richie Ross

The Sacramento Bee just published an article featuring go-to Democrat campaign consultant, longtime lobbyist, and Godfather of the United Farm Workers, Richie Ross.

The Bee probably did not to intend to, but the article cements Ross’s intertwining and conflicting roles, like a reptilian shapeshifter, synonymous with the UFW and California Agricultural Labor Relations Board member Genevieve Shiroma, as well as his consulting business and allegiances to elected state… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Agriculture Labor Board Corrupted With Bias and Conflict of Interest

Genevieve Shiroma, long time member of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, as well as a board member for the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, is the subject of a legal brief to disqualify her from the ALRB for bias and conflicts of interest.

How could the SMUD board and the Ag labor board be tied together in a conflict?

ALRB board member Shiroma hired UFW lobbyist Richie Ross for her personal campaign the same year he successfully lobbied passage of the ALRB’s California Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation Statute. The MMC law empowers the board to write and force contracts on employers and workers.

In September 2002, then-Gov. Gray Davis signed into law SB 1156 and AB 2596, the first major amendments to the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. The MMC law would compel Gerawan and its workers into a state-imposed “contract” that would saddle the employees with the UFW as their exclusive representative.

The UFW won an election to represent Gerawan Farming’s workers 25 years ago. But after only one bargaining session, the union disappeared and wasn’t… Read More

Katy Grimes

Gerawan Farm Worker Files Lawsuit to Oust ALRB Board Member for Bias

In a provocative and electrifying legal move, Gerawan Farming Company employee Silvia Lopez filed a legal brief to disqualify ALRB Board Member Genevieve Shiroma from the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, for bias and conflicts of interest.

Lopez cites evidence of Shiroma’s close political ties with the United Farm Workers union, and long time Democrat political operative Richie Ross. Silvia Lopez, a San Joaquin Valley farm worker, filed legal documents detailing payments over $120,000 from Shiroma to United Farm Workers’ Lobbyist Richie Ross, and documented Shiroma’s financial support of the author of a bill designed to help the UFW force itself on workers. UFW is the same union trying to force itself on the employees where Lopez works, as Lopez has fought for two years for her co-workers right to vote. Shiroma made the payments to the UFW’s lobbyist while she sat in judgment of issues directly involving that union, and while the workers ballots remain uncounted in a government vault

In 2013, I did an investigation of Shiroma and found some startling conflicts.

“In 1998, voters… Read More

Katy Grimes

ALRB Part ll: Background on ALRB Chair Shiroma

This series reports on the backgrounds of the board members and officials ofthe ALRB. Part 1 ishere.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board is made up of five members, the board was created when the Agricultural Labor Relations Act was signed into law in June 1975 by Gov. Jerry Brown.

With two vacancies, the board currently hasthree members:

* Chairwoman Genevieve A. Shiroma, who has served on the board since 1999, was… Read More