Wonderful sues state agency over union card check law

A local subsidiary of ag giant The Wonderful Co. launched a legal attack Monday against a landmark California labor organizing tool central to the company’s escalating dispute with the United Farm Workers union.

The petition for a writ of mandate filed Monday in Kern County Superior Court challenges the constitutionality of a so-called card check law Gov. Gavin Newsom grudgingly signed in 2022 after UFW supporters marched for 24 days from the union’s historic home in Delano to the state Capitol.

If the suit is successful, it would also stop the clock on Wonderful Nurseries LLC’s June 3 deadline to negotiate its first labor contract with the UFW and pause a hearing on related accusations by both sides.

The card check law offers a new path to unionization for farmworkers who sign registration paperwork as an alternative to the traditional secret ballot process. Wonderful alleges the measure violates the company’s state and federal constitutional rights to due process, among other claims.

Monday’s filing follows through on Wonderful’s threat to sue the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which in March certified the UFW’s representation of more than 600 workers at the Wasco-based nursery operation. The board and each of its five members, as well as its executive secretary and regional director, are named as defendants in the suit.

The ALRB approved the union’s petition to represent the workers despite claims that many of the nursery’s workers signed UFW registration cards only because they thought they were applying to receive federal farmworker benefit checks. Dozens of Wonderful workers have asked to withdraw their union authorizations because they said they were tricked by the UFW.

The UFW has said no workers were misled and that, on the contrary, the company coerced workers to make false statements against the union. The UFW says the card check law addresses longstanding concerns about companies intimidating employees during unionization votes.

On Monday, a union spokeswoman said by email it’s no surprise the company filed its lawsuit less than three weeks after the ALRB’s general counsel accused Wonderful of committing an unfair labor practice when a labor consultant and a pair of human resources employees spoke with company workers earlier this year about the UFW’s unionization drive. The company has denied the allegation.

UFW spokeswoman Elizabeth Strater wrote that Wonderful is trying to eliminate a law protecting farmworkers, which she said is “unfortunate but it isn’t unexpected.”

“Whatever method farm workers can use to seek their own empowerment, their employers will push back,” she stated.

The ALRB did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

A formal hearing on the allegations by Wonderful, the UFW and the ALRB kicked off April 23 in downtown Bakersfield and is expected to go on for weeks if not months. An administrative law judge overseeing the case is expected to rule on whether to leave in place the ALRB’s certification that the UFW represents workers at Wonderful Nurseries.

Wonderful said it intends to request the hearing be halted pending a decision on the constitutionality of the card check law UFW relied on to unionize the company’s nursery workers

Newsom signed the card check legislation, Assembly Bill 2183, in late September 2022 after vetoing a similar bill a year before. He did so under pressure from President Joe Biden and other Democrats, shortly after the UFW march to Sacramento.

Farm groups had warned that the card check process could lead to union bullying of workers, though the UFW and others said it would create an easier path to free, fair union elections.

The law, since clarified by a second bill Newsom signed a year ago, amended UFW procedures such that there are now two types of farmworker elections possible: conventional, secret ballot elections or “majority support petitions” that rely on union authorization cards to reach the required majority of eligible voters.

Wonderful says conventional union elections contained safeguards lacking in the new system, such as poll watchers representing both sides. It contends the new law conflates signature-gathering with an actual election. It notes the law places no limits on how long the union registrations remain in effect or how many times they can be used.

Los Angeles-based The Wonderful Co. is best known for its nuts, citrus, pomegranate juice and Fiji Water. It has extensive operations in Kern County.