State’s high court upholds farm labor law
In a victory for farm worker unions, the California Supreme Court on Monday upheld a state law requiring employers in a farm labor dispute to accept the terms of a contract ordered by a state mediator after negotiations fail to produce an agreement.
The law, passed in 2002, was declared unconstitutional in 2015 by a state appeals court, which said it discriminated against growers and improperly allowed the state farm labor board, and its mediator, to impose binding contracts that had not been negotiated. But the state’s high court ruled unanimously that the law was a neutral measure designed to speed up the pace of farm labor collective bargaining in California.
The state in 1975 passed the nation’s first law giving farm workers the right to join unions and negotiate with growers but, as of 2002, only 40 percent of agricultural employers had agreed to contracts with unions their employees had chosen, the court said. The 2002 law allowed either side to seek a mediator who would oversee negotiations, and then, if no agreement was reached,
than that requires two birds.
Among the wishes this year were ones urging an end to war, an end to hunger and an end to ads on the Pandora online music service. The score on those is 0 for 3.
The City Hall tree, unlike most trees, is made of plastic and metal. It is assembled like a layer cake, with giant steel hoops. Before the wishes get hung on it, the tree looks a little like the frame for hoop skirts worn in “Gone With the Wind.”
The official tree lighting is next Monday at 6 p.m. Mayor Ed Lee wrote on a bird that he wanted civic pride and respect in San Francisco, and is scheduled to show up for the ceremony to see if that comes about.
Putting the tree together is plenty complicated. Birds from previous years are saved and rehung. All birds must be strung with metal wire and sent to a special plant in San Leandro. There, each one is dipped into a vat of fireproofing solution. It costs Cotter $500 a year to fireproof the paper birds, but that’s part of the deal with the city. Seventeen thousand paper birds are just as flammable as they are inspirational.
After that, a final step remains. Each paper bird is pressed by head bird presser Karen Kai with a beautician’s hair-straightening iron.
“First the wings,” Kai said. “Then the head and the tail and you’re ready to go.”
A lot of famous people have scribbled wishes that did their time in the tree. Barack Obama asked for a kinder world, Joan Baez asked for organized nonviolence, Shirley Temple Black asked for people to think. Naturalist Jane Goodall fired off a long request on behalf of the environment, harmony, health and happiness that came in at 44 words over the limit but, because she was Jane Goodall, she got her wish to have a long wish.
Hillary Clinton, in her wish just before the presidential election, selflessly asked for marriage equality instead of for victory at the polls. She got the first wish.
“With wishes, there are no guarantees,” explained Cotter. “That’s not our department.”