PA 460: Local Government Policy Analysis

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PA 460: Local Government Policy Analysis

California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act

Overview

On Cesar Chavez Day, a crowd of 50 farmworkers, community members, and advocates assembled in Fresno to match and honor the late labor leader and yet again to ask governor Gavin Newsom to sign the bill that was meant to make it easier for farmworkers in California to vote in the union during elections. This march followed the vents organized by UFW and its grounds in 13 urban and rural cities within California. The farmworkers assembled to raise awareness on the AB 2183, Agricultural Relations voting Choice Act, that would allow the farmworkers the option of voting via e-mail during union elections. The act is mainly established to amend the agricultural Labor relations Act, facilitating farmworkers’ ability to either vote against or for unionization. It expands the voting options allowing the farmworkers to vote by either mailing, physical locations, or dropping the representation ballot cards at the ALRB office. The workers would be assisted in filling and returning the representation ballot cards as long as those assisting them cosign them and return them to the ALRB offices when signed and sealed in an envelope.

This bill would therefore establish other procedures compared to the election at polling places and authorize labor organizations to be licensed as elite bargaining representatives to bargaining units through labor or non-labor peace elections, as a set, depending on whether the employers agree and enroll in labor peace elections for the labor union representation campaigns. The bill will labor, and a non-labor peace election allows any bargaining unit to select summarily any labor organization to represent it for collective bargaining without using the existing polling process. A labor peace election would be mail ballot elections. In contrast, the non-labor peace elections would involve establishing a method for submitting a petition with the majority support proof subjected to board certification. The bill would also require the two alternative procedures that employers respond to concerning a petition, including providing a specific list of employees to a board. The bill would also impose a local program that is state mandated.

Official actors

Among those that marched on in Fresno included the elected members of the central valley of San Joaquin, such as Santos Garcia Madera’s mayor, Joe Sigala, the council member from Tulare, and recently running for the Senate seat for the 33rd district. Mark Stone, an assembly maker, authored the AB 616 bill to allow the farmworkers in California to vote for their union through the mail instead of ballot elections conducted in person on the grower’s property. The farmworker’s advocates also said that the farmworkers were intimidated during the union elections, which were conducted on the grower’s property under the agricultural act. The union also tried to reach out to the governor to discuss this act before its veto called it hypocritical. The governor avoided the recall due to the voting by mail option during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unofficial actors

The co-sponsors to this bill involved the UFW and Stone’s office, who had been working with the office of Newsom on the changes he suggested detailed in the veto letter. Agricultural grower associations opposed the bill, with the chamber of commerce classifying the bill in its killer list. Other non-agricultural unions are covered under the NALRA, a federal law governing labor that excludes domestic and farmworkers with alternative voting options during union elections. There is also the cannabis farm located in Southern California that requested union representation from the board of labor relations.

Fiscal Impact

The Budget Act of appropriates $6,688,000 from the General Fund of the Office of the Program on Agricultural Labor Relations during the fiscal year currently in progress. Due to the fact that this argument is reenacts clauses from current legislation, it won’t have any impact or any appreciable increase in the state’s costs. Some features that are not permitted under current law would lead to a small rise in state expenses, among other things, would savings. Any net cost increase would be manageable within the limits of the board’s present budget

Recommendation/conclusion

This bill is still to be enacted as it still awaits Governor Newsman’s signature. However, this act will pass a series of changes to the exercise of the right to vote. The changes will give Californian residents the means to cast their votes by voting via mail, allowing others to deliver or mail the ballots, others will be able to drop ballots at various locations, and others will assist the voters in completing their polls. ALRB will issue the ballot cards in the elections and be responsible for receiving the total ballot cards at the ALRB office. After the elections are complete, ALRB will decide the results and verify the election’s validity determining whether the election received the most votes or the majority did not want a union. The ALRB should also be responsible for certifying any labor organization as a bargaining representative once both petitions from the firm are received and ballot cards from not less than 50% of currently eligible employees are signed. Both the employer and the union are allowed to challenge the election outcome. Any objections would result in investigative hearings, which could lead to either the setting aside of the completed election or certification of the results of the polls. Modernizing the Agricultural; Labor Relations Act and allowing elections through ballot cards facilitates the ability of the farmworkers to exercise their voting rights against or for the union. This bill will amend the law allowing farmworkers to vote using representation ballot cards.

I intensely support California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act, as it will give the agricultural workers in California a greater chance to collectively bargain and organize for better benefits, wages, and work conditions. Farmworkers always work tirelessly and with more significant personal risks to put food on the American tables in the period of the ongoing pandemic. Therefore, the state with the highest populace of farmworkers should at least be given an tranquil path to making a fair and free choice to shape the union. The government should work not to erect but to remove the barriers to organizing farm workers. Unions transform workers’ lives and work by ensuring higher wages, better benefits such as health insurance, paid leaves, protection from harassment and discrimination, and healthier and safer workplaces. Unions give the workers a voice that is heard and answered. Organizing a union is, therefore, democracy at its best. They are essential, especially today, since the voice of workers has been silenced for a long through shameful policies and race-based laws. Workers should therefore be able to choose whether to organize the union.

References

Public CEO (Aggregate news site dedicated to providing a statewide perspective, relevant headlines and commentary from throughout California’s 482 cities, 58 counties and thousands of special districts)

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