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October 2, 2008
Governor vetoes ag worker union bill
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger again has rejected legislation
to give farm workers another option for organizing.
Schwarzenegger vetoed Assembly bill 2386 by Assemblyman Fabian Nunez,
D-Los Angeles, that would have offered workers the choice of using a
secret ballot either to:
Chose union
representation directly, or
Request a traditional
ballot booth election overseen by the Agricultural Labor Relations
Board.
The governor said the bill would have given unions too great a role in
distributing and collecting ballots.
Proponents said workers would have filled out the ballots in private and
the process would have been overseen by a neutral mediator selected by
both employers and labor.
"AB 2386 would have advanced secret ballot elections for farm workers
using absentee ballots just like many Californians fill out at election
time," Nunez said in a prepared statement.
Advocates led by the United Farm Workers argued the bill was necessary
to ensure fairer organizing opportunities for workers that could lead to
stronger enforcement of labor laws with union representation.
"His (Schwarzenegger's) so-called commitment to the farm workers is one
that has been left to rot in a field of apathy where only the interests
of agricultural employers are reaped," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez
said in a prepared statement.
But growers and other business interests thanked the governor for
vetoing the bill that they said would have undermined the state's farm
labor law that ensures farm workers a secret ballot.
"We are extremely pleased that the governor saw this bill for exactly
what it was: an assault on democracy and the rights of farm workers to
cast their union votes in private," Barry Bedwell, president of the
California Grape and Tree Fruit League, said in a prepared statement.
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