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MARYSVILLE (
Farmworker union bill lives, dies with governor
By Howard Yune
Farmworker union organizers in California hope the third time is the
charm as a bill to ease the organizing of laborers awaits the governor's
signature.
Within two weeks, Arnold Schwarzenegger will decide the fate of a bill
to replace secret-ballot elections with a "card-check" system allowing a
union to represent workers simply by having more than half a workforce
sign cards in its favor, then sending the results to the state labor
board.
The governor vetoed similar bills in 2007 and 2008.
The card-check proposal cleared the Senate this spring, then won
Assembly approval Thursday on a party-line 46-28 vote — over the
objections of many rural lawmakers and growers. Supporters, including
the United Farm Workers, say the new system is needed to stop
farmworkers and other employers from firing or blackballing union
organizers or supporters before an election.
Assemblyman Dan Logue, however, repeated skeptics' fears the loss of
secret ballots could foster harassment of a different target — laborers
voting against unionization with the full knowledge of their peers.
"What we want is to protect those employees so that they can vote
without intimidation, without someone looking over their shoulder,"
Logue, R-Linda. "... That's how we vote for president, that's how we
vote for governor and that's how they should vote on whether to
unionize."
"It's an invasion of privacy; you're forcing people to do something you
want them to do," said Sarb Johl, a District 10 peach farmer who
employed about 80 workers for this summer's harvest. "It's just
overreaching."
However, examples of laborers' poor working conditions on farms — such
the heat-stroke death of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez last
year in Merced County — highlight the need to ease unions' path into
farms.
"We hope that after he saw that was the case, that the bill can give
farmworkers a fair chance to organize so they can enforce the laws in
the field," said Merlyn Calderon, the UFW's political director in
California, who dismissed predictions that unions would intimidate their
opponents.
Most federal worker protections do not extend to farmworkers, who were
left out of the National Labor Relations Act passed in 1935. Safeguards
for California farm laborers have come from state law since the
mid-1970s.
With no action from Schwarzenegger due until next week, a spokesman for
the governor gave few clues whether the latest bill could win his
approval when previous ones did not.
"While this bill is similar to (bills) he vetoed in the past, he will
consider this bill on its own merits when making his decision," Mike
Naple said Friday.
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