Farmworkers call on Newsom to back bill
Measure would provide more options for how agricultural workers vote in union elections
When Manuel Gonzalez, a farmworker for around 20 years, tried to persuade workers to form a union at his last company, he said he was let go after his employer discovered that he was organizing.
Gonzalez, 45, said he fears that if he votes in a union election at his new workplace — a farm, headquartered in Gilroy, that produces fruits and vegetables — he could lose his job or face other reprisals, putting him, his wife and sons in economic hardship.
On March 31 — the birthday of civil rights activist César Chávez, at the downtown San Jose plaza that bears the labor champion's name — Gonzalez spoke of his fear that speaking out could again cost him his job.
“If I vote in front of the supervisor, I'm sure that they're going to retaliate against me,” he said in Spanish, through a translator. “We would like to have the same system as the politicians in California, like last year, when Gov. Gavin Newsom faced the recall and people voted via mail. We're asking for the exact same thing.”
Gonzalez was one of over a dozen farmworkers who gathered to demand support for the
Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, AB 2183. If passed, the legislation would provide more opportunities for how agricultural workers can vote in their union elections. Farmworkers in 13 California cities, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, protested on March 31 to call on Newsom to support the bill.
In August, UFW farmworkers are planning to march from Delano to Sacramento, retracing the route that Chávez and agricultural workers took in 1966, when they marched to the state capital to demand legal rights for farmworkers.
United Farm Workers, or UFW, was founded in 1962 by Chávez, Dolores Huerta and other leaders in the farmworkers movement and attracted national attention through a boycott of grapes that began in the 1960s. Activists pushed then-gov. Jerry Brown to sign the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, establishing the right of agricultural workers to join and select unions for collective bargaining.
UFW currently has about 10,000 members across California, Washington and Oregon, according to UFW spokesperson Marc Grossman. Although it's hard to pin down how many farmworkers there are in the Golden State, Grossman estimated that the number stood at about 400,000.
A first iteration of the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act was passed last year in the Senate and the Assembly but ultimately was vetoed by Newsom in September. A newer version of the legislation, AB2183, was introduced in the Assembly in February.
“We asked to meet with Newsom today (March 31), on César Chávez Day, and he declined. He didn't offer different meeting days or anything,” said UFW Director of Strategic Campaigns Elizabeth Strater. “César Chávez Day isn't just a history lesson; it's giving farmworkers access to justice and fairness at work.”
Newsom's office said in a statement that “the governor has committed to meeting with UFW representatives and looks forward to engaging in a meaningful dialogue to uplift our farmworker community” and said the union's meeting offer was on a day the governor was out of state with his family.
Farmworkers can experience exploitation, wage theft and retaliation from their employers, especially if they're attempting to unionize, according to Strater.
“Farm employers have a lot of control over what farmworkers do,” she said. “They're not only working at the work site, but they may be living in housing provided by the employer or transported in vehicles owned by the employer. When you have this level of control over someone's life, it's obviously a very intimidating thing to participate in a union campaign and say we want a shot at controlling some of our lives ourselves.”
Serena Alvarez, and attorney and executive director of the Salvador E. Alvarez Institute for Non-violence, is the granddaughter of migrant farmworkers and attended the demonstration in San Jose in a show of solidarity.
“My grandmother gave birth to my father and siblings in the field. That's part of my family's history,” she said. “Farmworkers are not invisible. People drive up and down the Valley every day buying produce, and we can't forget where that comes from.”
Grossman also addressed some of the criticisms of the bill, including the claim that it would undermine the secret ballot election process or act as a “card check” bill. A card check is the provision that allows workers to skip a secret ballot election by having a majority of workers sign cards expressing an interest in forming a union.
“Workers would have a choice,” Grossman said. “In union elections, they're almost always on the grower property, which is fraught with intimidation and coercion. If workers wish to have a traditional polling place at the worker site, they can do that, or if they want, they can vote by mail in the comfort of their home. That's all the bill does.”