California Farm Bureau issued a news release with President Jamie Johansson’s response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of Assembly Bill 2183.
That bill is a legislative expansion of union rights for farmworkers.
But Johansson says “The California Farm Bureau is deeply disappointed in Governor Newsom’s decision to sign the misguided union organizing legislation, Assembly Bill 2183.
Johansson goes on to say that Farm Bureau stands with California’s agricultural employees and will continue to defend their right to make uncoerced choices about union representation.
However, the governor’s unfortunate decision to sign this bill will create a mail-in balloting system that threatens the integrity of secret ballot elections and leaves farm employees vulnerable to intimidation by union organizers with an obvious interest in the outcome.
It also forces California’s farmers and ranchers to choose to give up free speech and private property rights in a dubious trade to allow their employees a real voice in a union election.”
According to the bill’s author on Governor Newsom’s website, Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay) creates new ways for farmworkers to vote in a union election, including options for mail-in ballots, and authorization cards submitted to the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, in addition to the existing in-person voting process.
