Farmworkers and their advocates in California are marking César Chávez Day today by urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to support legislation that would give these laborers more choices in how they can vote in their union elections, including through mail.
While a bill similar to the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act passed the state legislature last year, it was vetoed by the governor in September. Farmworkers, along with advocates and elected officials, plan to rally in more than a dozen cities today to again press for the legislation’s passage.
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“Farmworker union elections often happen on the grower’s property,” Cal Matters reported last year, which laborers and their advocates have said can be intimidating. ”We deserve to vote where we don’t have supervisors and labor contractors there pressuring us,” vineyard worker Vianey Enriquez said. “It’s impossible to have a free choice when you have the supervisor who threatened to fire anyone who voted for the union staring at you.”
The legislation is similar to the state’s popular vote-by-mail system, allowing farmworkers to be able to fill out their ballots in their own homes. Farmworkers can also choose to vote at a physical location, or by dropping off a representation ballot to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) office.
“Farmworkers would be able to receive assistance in filling out and returning their representation ballot card as long as the person assisting them co-signs it, and it is returned to the ALRB office in a sealed and signed envelope,” a fact sheet from state lawmaker and bill author Mark Stone’s office said. It noted the state’s recent move making universal voting by mail permanent.
“This bill applies that same principle and extends similar opportunities to farm workers as they exercise their longstanding right to vote in a union representation election.” But in vetoing last year’s bill, Newsom cited “various inconsistencies and procedural issues related to the collection and review of ballot cards,” The Sacramento Bee reported.
United Farm Workers, which Chávez co-founded alongside fellow labor icon Dolores Huerta, said “the 50 billion dollar agricultural industry has strong opposition” to the legislation. The organization said that while it asked to meet with Newsom on Chávez’s holiday, he declined.
"Without this law farm workers don't have a fighting chance,” said farmworker Francisco Naranjo. “Growers will continue to manipulate the process and intimidate us to take away our voice. Being allowed the privilege to vote offsite would allow farm workers to make their own decision and vote for a union with its benefits without supervisors' interference."
The legislation comes at a particularly vulnerable time for farmworkers. Undocumented laborers remain without permanent relief as the conservative Supreme Court last year “overturned a California regulation allowing union representatives to visit agricultural properties to talk to farmworkers at specific times when they won’t interrupt work,” Daily Kos’ Laura Clawson wrote at the time.
”UFW Vice President Lauro Barajas was disappointed to hear the Supreme Court had ruled against labor, but not frustrated,” Cal Matters reported at the time. “There’s always something that inspires or pushes us to continue our work,” Barajas said in the report. “The frustration is like giving up, and we can’t give up.”
Click here to send a message asking Gov. Newsom to support the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Choice Act. ¡Si, se puede!
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