Card Check on Chavez Day

by | Apr 7, 2011 | Labor Relations Ink

On Cesar Chavez Day last week, the California Senate approved “card check” legislation for California farm workers.  The bill, sponsored by the United Farm Workers Union, would also create stiffer financial penalties for employers who engage in unfair labor practices but not for union organizers who break the law in obtaining signed union cards.  “What this bill seeks to do is to change the playing field because getting those cards signed, the so-called card check, really tilts the playing field toward the union,” said Sen. Mark Wyland, R-Solana Beach. Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, whose engineering firm is unionized, warned that allowing a process besides the secret ballot “opens the door to worker intimidation, coercion and bullying” from union leaders. Supporters dismissed that argument, saying employers already have significant influence compared to agricultural workers who they can’t seem to stop confusing with professional union organizers.  “The suggestion that the legislation somehow empowers intimidation by union representatives when all of the power, all of the control and all of the economic resources are in fact held in the hands of the employer is simply beyond pale,” said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto. While it seems unlikely, Sen. Simitian must be unaware that the UFW has eighty paid officers and employees, most of them organizers, brings in $7M a year and controls a pension fund with over $100M in assets for 2400 retirees. He may have also missed the LA Times expose’ on the dozen spin-off non-profits that use Chavez as a marketing device to bring in millions a year for the union’s leadership that also just so happen to be members of the extended Chavez family.  

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