SB 104 and Governor Brown's Shame
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By Robert Cruickshank
Last night a crowd of farmworkers, UFW leaders, and Democratic legislators gathered in front of Governor Jerry Brown's Capitol office, awaiting word on whether he would sign SB 104, a bill that would help farmworker safety and prosperity by allowing them to organize unions via card check. The UFW pushed it after a rash of heat-related deaths in the fields in recent years, deaths that could have been prevented if more farmworkers had unions to protect them.
Brown had played up his connections to Cesar Chavez and the UFW during the campaign, and notably signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975 recognizing the right of farmworkers to organize unions.
The governor's office had been silent on the bill, not giving any indication what he would do. As the midnight deadline for action approached, the crowd grew, especially after the legislature approved the budget, hoping for good news.
Instead they received a shock as Governor Brown vetoed SB 104, siding with big business over farmworkers. Brown's veto message doesn't really give any explanation for the veto, except that it changes the ALRA which, apparently, Brown wants to keep taking credit for even after its shortcomings have been revealed:
SB 104 is indeed a drastic change and I appreciate the frustrations that have given rise to it. But, I am not yet convinced that the far reaching proposals of this bill--which alter in a significant way the guiding assumptions of the ALRA--are justified. Before restructuring California's carefully crafted agricultural labor law, it is only right that the legislature consider legal provisions that more carefully track its original framework. The process should include all those who are affected by the ALRA.
In other words, Brown wants something that will make agribusiness happy - the same people who have shown no concern over farmworker heat deaths, who are happy to continue to pay workers poorly.
This is one of the problems you get with bringing back a former governor to office. Brown basically thinks nothing has changed in 36 years and that despite the proven shortcomings of the ALRA, it is fine and doesn't need to be fixed, especially if it makes agribusiness sad.
Of course, Brown pulled shit like this all the time when he was governor in the 1970s and 1980s, vetoing or opposing legislation that his allies strongly backed. It infuriated Democrats and helped give an opening to the right. More of that crap is the price we paid for beating Meg Whitman.
If all-cuts budgets and vetoing labor legislation is what we're going to get from Governor Brown, let's hope he decides on only one term, and lets California move on to better leadership in 2014.
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Robert Cruickshank writes on California politics at Calitics.com. You can follow him on Twitter @cruickshank. This article was originally published on Calitics. This article was originally published on Calitics.
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I fully support the right of workers to unionize... most of us in non-union industries have all been in situations where we'd like to get together and uniformly fight for the benefit of our departments.
However, I absolutely do NOT support any form of 'Card Check.' If unions cannot unionize by secret ballot vote, then that should be key to you that the potential member majority does NOT want to unionize. Why on Earth would you think that exposing every potential member's voting decision is your business? Explain to me in what way you seem to think that's "Democratic." If you were voting on a bill that perhaps was controversial and you didn't want your neighbors to know how you voted, would you want the government to then provide a list of how everyone voted so that you can be chastized and criticized by your peers?
As far as I'm concerned, if the members voted down unionizing, then that's all that needs to be said.
Govoner Brown did the right thing by vetoing this legislation. The backbone of our demacracy are secret ballot elections; where after hearing both sides someone can vote the way they actually want without worry of anyone finding out how they voted.
This bill would have taken that away. Instead a union leader would stand infront of a worker hand them a card and say, "sign this", if they don't the union leaders know who they are and how they voted. Talk about intimidation! Or worse an employee may not get the oportunity to even vote, afterall they only need 51% of the employees to sign the cards. Imagine coming to work one day and finding out you are now part of a union and not even been able to vote for or against it.
I would be interested if supporters of this bill would also support an employer being able to decertify a union by a similar card check program.