Farmworkers in NY and CA File Federal Challenges Against Statutes Letting Union Bosses Seize Control Without Employee Vote
Workers contend that “card check” unionization method leads to false claims of majority union support, intimidation, and constitutional violations
Washington, DC (May 27, 2025) – Agricultural workers from New York and California have just filed federal complaints to challenge laws in both states that permit United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials to force them under union control using highly suspect tactics. Both sets of workers are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
In New York, farmworkers Ricardo Bell and Jean Fenel Estrame, who work for Porpiglia Farms in Marlboro and Cherry Lawn Farms in Sodus respectively, are challenging the so-called Farm Laborers’ Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA). In California, Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez, Maria Gutierrez, and 18 others are challenging portions of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA).
The New York agricultural employees are challenging the FLFLPA because, among other things, it lets union officials sweep to power through the coercive “card check” unionization method. The California farmworkers assert that the ALRA forces employees and employers alike to accept government-mandated union contracts after such coercion has occurred, and challenge card check itself in a similar state court case.
The card check process lacks the security of a secret ballot vote, and exposes workers to intimidation and manipulation from union officials who seek to collect enough cards to claim “majority support” among workers. Under the rules of both California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) and New York’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), a union that presents the agency with cards obtained from a majority of workers immediately gains certification as the workers’ monopoly bargaining agent.
Charges of improper behavior in obtaining this status, including union lies and coercion while collecting cards, can only be dealt with after the union is certified – if at all. Further, under both statutes, certification starts a countdown to a government-imposed union contract that can trap workers in union ranks for years.
Even worse, Bell and Estrame’s complaint argues that New York’s FLFLPA violates the U.S. Constitution because it lacks basic provisions to guard workers from union boss malfeasance. The statute “does not require that unions fairly represent employees, does not give employees a right to refrain from union activity, and does not give employees a right to file unfair labor practice charges against a union,” the complaint says.
In the Wonderful Nurseries case, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California permitted the 20 employees to intervene in a lawsuit against the ALRB. The employees’ current complaint was then filed on May 19. Meanwhile, in New York, Bell and Estrame filed a motion on May 21 seeking to intervene in a suit in which the New York State Vegetable Growers Association, Porpiglia Farms, and other farm operators are challenging the FLFLPA.
Workers Challenged Union’s Rise to Power Through Deceitful Techniques
Wonderful Nurseries employees sought to intervene in a case challenging UFW bosses’ card check organizing campaign at first before the ALRB, after the agency certified the union’s questionable 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.”
Complaint: NY Ag Labor Statute Also Disrupts Workers’ Immigration Status
In addition to citing issues with card check, Bell and Estrame’s complaint notes that the FLFLPA’s imposition of UFW bargaining control over them interferes with Bell’s legal status in the country under the H2-A agricultural visa program. “The inclusion of H2-A employees in the FLFLPA statutory scheme and in bargaining units certified by PERB under the statute is preempted by the federal government’s general power to regulate the field of immigration…” the complaint says. According to the complaint, that overreach by the NY statute violates the Supremacy and Contract Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
“These farmworkers from New York and California are challenging the use of so-called ‘card check’ organizing campaigns in the agricultural sector. But they really speak for countless workers across industries who have faced intimidation, harassment, and other rights violations during card check campaigns just so union officials can seize bargaining control over them and collect dues,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Workers everywhere in the country should have the right to vote in a secure secret ballot election on whether they want a union. And, just as importantly, they should have a right to refrain from union activity and challenge union boss misdeeds if a union they oppose does gain control over them. Card check is a process designed to trample workers’ individual rights.”
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.”
California Farmworkers Fight Back Against Lie-Ridden Union ‘Card Check’
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
UFW bosses seized power under false pretenses, now stifle any dissent
Maria Gutierrez (left) and Claudia Chavez (right) are battling powerhungry UFW union bosses’ deceptive “card check” unionization drive, which has already stirred huge opposition among their coworkers.
BAKERSFIELD, CA – Most states don’t offer union bosses the legal privilege to force agricultural workers under their monopoly bargaining control. In such arrangements, all employees in a work unit must accept the “representation” of a union regardless of whether they support or voted for the union.
This isn’t the case in California, where the perennially pro-forced unionism legislature has granted union bosses the power to thrust farm employees under union control. Not only that, the state legislature recently handed union bosses the ability to gain power in an agricultural workplace via the so-called “card check” method. Card check bypasses workers’ right to vote in secret on the union and instead relies on union authorization cards collected by union officials, who often use misinformation, threats, or intimidation to obtain card signatures from workers, including in a current National Right to Work Foundation case.
CA Labor Board Blindly Accepts Suspect ‘Card Check’ Results
Card check has glaring flaws. Despite that, if a union submits cards collected from a majority of workers in a workplace, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) will immediately declare that union to be a monopoly bargaining agent — a status that can only be challenged after the fact.
Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez are two Foundation-represented workers at Wonderful Nurseries’ grapevine nursey in Wasco, CA — the largest grapevine nursery in North America. They are now fighting for their and their coworkers’ rights in a situation that demonstrates the real-life problems that card check creates for worker freedom. In April, they submitted unfair labor practice charges stating that United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials “by artifice, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, and/or coercion” got them and many of their coworkers to sign membership cards for the union, and the union falsely “represent[ed] itself as having obtained the support of a majority of the employees” afterward.
UFW Campaign Rife with Misrepresentation and Even Discrimination
“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented. “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. We hope the ALRB listens to us and prosecutes the union for its illegal acts.”
Chavez and Gutierrez’s charges describe multiple lies — and even discriminatory behavior — that UFW union bosses used to get employees to sign authorization cards, including “representing that certain COVID19-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 Spanishspeaking discriminatees union membership cards only in English . . . [and] presenting to illiterate discriminatees union membership cards and misrepresenting their content and/or significance.”
Workers Protest Illegal Union Actions Despite Crackdown on Dissent
UFW union officials’ malfeasance isn’t stopping, according to Chavez and Gutierrez’s charges. They contend that UFW bosses are illegally forbidding employees from taking back the fraudulently-obtained cards and are “engaging in a campaign of harassment, libel, slander, and intimidation against [employees who are] exercising their right of free speech and/or protest under [California labor law] to oppose UFW representation.” But it seems Wonderful Nurseries employees haven’t been deterred, as Wonderful Nurseries workers have engaged in multiple outdoor demonstrations against the union, chanting, “We don’t want a union, listen to our voices, don’t ignore us.”
As another part of the nursery workers’ battle against the UFW, Foundation attorneys represented 13 employees in a motion to intervene in Wonderful Nurseries’ separate case challenging the legitimacy of the card check drive, and now represent a total of 20 Wonderful Nurseries employees.
“UFW union officials have treated Wonderful Nurseries workers as pawns to be used in their pursuit of power, deceiving them with no regard for their rights and now engaging in retaliation against those who exercise their free speech rights against the union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Their situation above all shows the significant problems of the ‘card check’ process, in which workers are denied a chance to vote in secret on a union and are left exposed to a multitude of illegal union tactics.”
Wonderful Nurseries Workers Hit UFW Union with Charges Detailing Fraudulent Union Campaign, Illegal Discrimination
Charges: Union gained “majority status” through false pretenses and union agents are cracking down on workers that express opposition
Bakersfield, CA (April 26, 2024) – Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez, two workers at food and drink company Wonderful Nurseries LLC’s Wasco, CA, grapevine nursery, have filed charges against the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. They maintain that UFW agents fraudulently obtained membership cards from employees and later used this as a basis to demand monopoly-bargaining power over Wonderful employees statewide. Chavez and Gutierrez filed their charges at the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The ALRB is the California state agency responsible for governing labor relations in the state’s agricultural sector, which includes overseeing union attempts to gain bargaining control at farms and other facilities. Chavez and Gutierrez’s charges detail that UFW union officials installed themselves at Wonderful Nurseries through “card check,” which bypasses workers’ right to vote in secret on the union and instead relies on membership (or “authorization”) cards collected by union officials, sometimes under dubious circumstances.
The card check process lacks the security of a secret ballot vote, and exposes workers to intimidation and manipulation from union officials who seek to collect enough cards to claim “majority support” among workers. Under ALRB rules, a union that presents the agency with cards obtained from a majority of workers is immediately certified as the monopoly bargaining agent, a status that can only be challenged after the fact.
Chavez and Gutierrez argue that UFW union officials “by artifice, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, and/or coercion” got them and many of their coworkers to sign membership cards for the union and the union falsely “represent[ed] itself as having obtained the support of a majority of the employees” afterward. Chavez and Gutierrez also contend that UFW bosses are now illegally forbidding employees from revoking the fraudulently-obtained cards, and are harassing and retaliating against employees who oppose the union.
“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented. “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. We hope the ALRB listens to us and prosecutes the union for its illegal acts.”
Union Officials Spread Lies About Union Cards and Engaged in Discrimination to Obtain Signatures
Chavez and Gutierrez’s charges describe 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.”
With the union installed and UFW agents not letting workers revoke their illicitly-obtained memberships in the union, Chavez and Gutierrez note that UFW union officials are now “engaging in a campaign of harassment, libel, slander, and intimidation against [employees who are] exercising their right of free speech and/or protest under [California labor law] to oppose UFW representation.” News reports suggest that scores of Wonderful Nurseries workers have engaged in outdoor demonstrations against the union, declaring “We don’t want a union, listen to our voices, don’t ignore us.”
In addition to the ALRB charges, Chavez and Gutierrez, along with a dozen other coworkers, seek to intervene in the ongoing ALRB case in which Wonderful Nurseries is challenging the union’s card check majority “certification” as improperly based on cards collected through fraud and other improper means. Foundation staff attorneys represent the group of workers seeking to intervene in that case to defend their right not to be placed under union monopoly control as a result of UFW organizers’ illicit tactics.
“UFW union officials have treated Wonderful Nurseries workers as pawns to be used in their pursuit of power, deceiving them with no regard for their rights and now engaging in retaliation against those who exercise their free speech rights against the union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Their situation above all shows the glaring flaws of the ‘card check’ process, in which workers are denied a chance to vote in secret on a union and are left exposed to a multitude of illegal union tactics.”
