20 Wonderful Nurseries Farmworkers Seek to Join Federal Challenge to Biased Pro-Union Boss California Agricultural Labor Law
Filing: UFW union-backed law sweeps workers into union via coercive ‘card check’ scheme and imposes forced dues in violation of First Amendment
Bakersfield, CA (February 5, 2025) – A group of 20 employees of food and drink company Wonderful Nurseries’ Wasco, CA, facility have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that will force them under the control of United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials, to whom they have strenuously objected. The employees, who last year were subject to an aggressive “card check” unionization campaign from the UFW, are receiving free legal aid in their effort to defend their rights from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The federal lawsuit the workers seek to join was filed by Wonderful Nurseries against the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), and challenges the ALRB’s “mandatory mediation and conciliation” (MMC) process, which follows the ALRB’s highly-suspect certification of the UFW as the monopoly bargaining representative of the workers. The workers were denied intervention in Wonderful Nurseries’ state court lawsuit challenging the card check certification last July, one week before the court enjoined further proceedings based upon the certification. That lawsuit contends that UFW union agents claimed majority support by submitting to the ALRB union authorization cards that they had fraudulently obtained from workers.
As part of their motion to intervene in this new federal suit, the workers have also filed a proposed intervenors’ complaint detailing even more rights violations by the ALRB. The employees’ filing points out that the Wonderful Nurseries workers must be allowed to vindicate their own rights, which are inherently impacted by the lawsuit.
California labor law mandates that the ALRB should immediately certify a union as monopoly bargaining agent if it submits union cards from a majority of workers, even if there are objections as to how the cards were collected. “Card check” denies workers their right to vote in secret on whether they want a union, and instead allows union officials to demand union authorization cards directly from workers. Past Foundation-backed legal action by Wonderful Nurseries employees at the ALRB detailed the threats and discriminatory behavior that union agents used to obtain the cards.
The Wonderful Nurseries employees’ complaint and motion to intervene, filed by Foundation staff attorneys, joins Wonderful Nurseries’ challenge to the “mandatory mediation and conciliation” provisions of California labor law. Those provisions would force UFW officials and Wonderful Nurseries management to finalize a union contract that will almost certainly subject the workers to UFW union boss control for three years and payment of forced union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs.
“[T]he Employees seek this Court’s immediate intervention to protect their fundamental liberty interests, especially their freedom of association between and amongst themselves, and with their employer, and their rights to be free from State-compelled monopoly representation by a labor organization not legitimately chosen by a majority of employees, and from State-mandated payment of union dues or fees,” the complaint reads.
Radical CA Labor Law Violates First Amendment Janus Decision by Imposing Government-Mandated Forced-Dues Contracts on Workers
The complaint points out that state imposition of such a contract on the Wonderful Nurseries farmworkers would harm their First Amendment rights, as spelled out in the landmark Foundation-won Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. “[Janus] barred state-mandated and –enforced forced-unionism schemes,” reads the complaint.
In the 2018 Janus decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government-enforced union contracts that required state employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs are a violation of First Amendment free association principles. In this case, Foundation attorneys argue, the State of California would be compelling Wonderful Nurseries and the UFW union to impose a similar contract over farmworkers – one which would require them to subsidize the union or be fired. For that reason, the state government would be violating the First Amendment in the same way as happened in Janus, Foundation attorneys contend.
Employees: UFW Union Created Atmosphere of Intimidation, Discrimination During Union Campaign
Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez, who are part of the current effort, sought to intervene in this case before the ALRB, following the agency’s certification of the UFW’s dubious claims of majority support. In unfair labor practice charges before the ALRB, Chavez and Gutierrez described multiple fabrications – and even discriminatory behavior – that UFW union bosses used to get employees to sign authorization cards, including “representing that certain COVID-19-related public benefits available to farmworkers required signatures on union membership cards…that union membership cards were not, in fact, union membership cards to be used in any UFW organizing efforts…presenting to strictly Spanish-speaking discriminatees union membership cards only in English…[and] presenting to illiterate discriminatees union membership cards and misrepresenting their content and/or significance.”
“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented after filing charges. “Instead of just letting us vote in secret on whether we want a union, they went around lying and threatening to get cards and now are cracking down on anyone who speaks out against the union.”
“Wonderful Nurseries workers, who are desperately trying to defend their freedom from an unwanted UFW union, are finding themselves fighting not only UFW lawyers, but also the full weight of California’s top-down, draconian labor policy,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “By granting union bosses the authority to sweep workers under their control with suspect ‘card check’ campaigns, then having the government impose a forced-dues contract over the objection of both workers and businesses, California legislators have created an environment where workers’ individual rights are being crushed to promote raw, unchecked union boss power.”
Citing Federal Student Privacy Law, Vanderbilt Graduate Students Move to Block UAW Union Organizers from Obtaining Their Personal Info
“John Doe” grad students resist Labor Board claim that labor law can override Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
Nashville, TN (October 23, 2024) – Two graduate students at Vanderbilt University are seeking to intervene in a federal case in which Vanderbilt Graduate Workers United (VGWU, an affiliate of the United Auto Workers union, UAW) union officials are demanding personal information that the students wish to keep private. The students, who identify themselves in legal documents as “John Doe 1” and “John Doe 2,” have obtained free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to challenge a union subpoena demanding their personal information.
The students’ motion to intervene is now before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, following a special appeal from an NLRB Region 10 decision that tossed the motion on the specious ground that the students are “not a labor organization” and consequently have no interest in the case.
VGWU union bosses are seeking the students’ personal information as part of the union campaign to place Vanderbilt graduate students under UAW union monopoly bargaining control. NLRB Region 10 in Atlanta has issued a subpoena at the union’s behest seeking to force Vanderbilt University to hand over this information to union officials. However, the graduate students argue that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) forbids the Vanderbilt administration from disclosing this information to any third parties without their permission, including the UAW.
“The…subpoena to Vanderbilt is an attempt to violate FERPA’s protections, privileging union interests over the graduate students[’] privacy rights,” reads the graduate students’ appeal. “The Graduate Students seek to provide the Region legal arguments in support of their privacy interests, and against the…subpoena of Vanderbilt.”
Students Want Stop in Subpoena Enforcement So They Can Defend Their Privacy
The students’ original motion to intervene notes that FERPA’s language permits students to seek “protective action” if a university receives a subpoena seeking their personal information, as in this case. In light of that, the students are asking for a halt in the subpoena’s enforcement so they can properly defend their privacy interests. While the motion notes that the NLRB’s standards for allowing intervention have been unclear over the years, it argues that the students’ goal to defend their privacy interests provides a solid ground for intervention.
The VGWU union is an affiliate of the UAW union, which has a penchant for ignoring or violating employee rights in pursuit of gaining greater power over workers, businesses, and other institutions. The union is still under federal monitoring following a years-long embezzlement probe that uncovered millions of dollars in workers’ dues money misspent on luxury items, gambling, vacations, and more. The probe resulted in the convictions of about a dozen top UAW bosses.
“UAW officials are seeking to override college students’ federal privacy protections, which in addition to having no basis in law also treats students as pawns in the union’s ascent to power at the university,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The NLRB under both Obama and Biden has twisted longstanding labor law to give union bosses the power to force students into dues-paying union ranks. But graduate students across the country are increasingly discovering that heavy-handed union monopoly bargaining power means less freedom both in and out of the classroom and more inefficiency, disruption, and radical political activism.
“Union monopoly bargaining is a system particularly ill-suited to an academic environment. But it also forces workers all over the country to associate with and pay dues to union bosses they never wanted and may have explicitly voted against,” Mix added. “The Vanderbilt students we represent are right to resist this kind of compulsion and we will defend their right to privacy.”
