After more than a month of deliberation, a Kern County Superior Court judge sided with Wonderful Co. and issued a preliminary injunction that will temporarily halt a contentious bargaining process between the agricultural giant and the state’s largest farmworkers union.
In a ruling Thursday, Judge Bernard C. Barmann said Wonderful “has a strong chance of prevailing” in its legal challenge to the state’s relatively new system for organizing farm workers and that it risks irreparable harm if the United Farm Workers union is allowed to pursue a collective bargaining agreement on behalf of the company’s nursery workers before the case is decided.
“The court finds that the public interest favors a preliminary injunction, given the constitutional rights at stake in this case,” Barmann wrote in his 21-page decision. Wonderful “has fulfilled its duty in ordering that a preliminary injunction be issued until the case is fully heard on its merits.”
Wonderful, the $6 billion agricultural powerhouse owned by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, sued the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board in May, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s card-check system, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in 2022. Under its provisions, a union can organize farmworkers by having them sign authorization cards at off-site meetings, without notifying an employer, rather than casting a secret ballot at a designated polling place.
Union organizers have pushed for a revision of the card-check law, saying the secret voting process left workers fearing retaliation from their employers.
But Wonderful, whose portfolio includes such well-known brands as FIJI Water and POM Wonderful, claims in its complaint that the law denies employers due process on several fronts. Among them: forcing a company to enter into a collective bargaining agreement even if it has formally appealed the ALRB’s certification of a union vote and presented what it believes is evidence that the voting process was fraudulent.
The temporary injunction marks the latest twist in a tumultuous dispute over the UFW’s organizing drive at Wonderful Nurseries in Wasco, the nation’s largest grape nursery.
In late February, the UFW filed a petition with the labor board, claiming that a majority of the nursery’s more than 600 farmworkers had signed authorization cards and asking that the UFW be certified as their union representative.
Within days, Wonderful accused the UFW of urging farmworkers to sign the authorization cards under the guise of helping them apply for $600 in federal aid for farmworkers who have worked during the pandemic. And the company submitted nearly 150 signed statements from nursery workers saying they didn’t understand that by signing the cards, they were voting to unionize.
The UFW countered that Wonderful intimidated workers into making false statements and used a labor consultant with a reputation as a union-buster to manipulate their emotions in the weeks that followed.
The ALRB acknowledged receiving the Wonderful workers’ statements. Nevertheless, the regional director of the labor board moved forward three days later to certify the union’s petition. She testified in subsequent hearings that she believed she had to act quickly within the timeline set out in the card control law and that at the time she did not believe the law authorized her to investigate the allegations of misconduct.
Wonderful has appealed the ALRB certification.
Under the provisions of the Card Control Act, the UFW’s efforts to negotiate with the company on behalf of its child care workers have moved forward, even as Wonderful’s appeal of the certification wound its way through the ALRB’s administrative hearing process. The ALRB issued a decision last week ordering Wonderful to enter into mandatory mediation with the union to establish a collective agreement.
In its complaint filed in May, Wonderful challenges the constitutionality of the card-check system on several fronts. The complaint alleges that the company’s due process rights were violated when the labor board sought certification of the UFW’s petition before investigating the company’s allegations that the vote was fraudulent; and more generally, that the card-check system lacks adequate safeguards to ensure the truthfulness of the voting process.
The company asked the judge to halt unionization efforts at its daycare, as well as the ALRB’s administrative hearing process on the company’s appeal, while the lawsuit moves forward in Kern County court.
In a statement released Thursday evening, Rob Yraceburu, president of Wonderful Nurseries, said the company was “pleased” with the court’s decision to stay the certification process until the constitutionality of the card control law can be “fully and properly considered.”
“Furthermore,” Yraceburu said, “farmworkers were unfairly prevented from opposing the unionization that was imposed on them, and this decision establishes that Wonderful does indeed have the right to fight to ensure that farmworkers’ constitutional rights, including their due process and First Amendment rights, are not violated.”
UFW spokeswoman Elizabeth Strater countered that the decision “ignores 89 years of labor law jurisprudence” and said the decision to grant the preliminary injunction would be appealed.
“There is already a process in place to address election irregularities and Wonderful was at the heart of that process. Why does Wonderful want to disrupt that process and silence workers so their voices are not heard?” Strater said. “It is very clear that Wonderful is determined to use its considerable resources to disenfranchise farmworkers.”
In a May 30 filing, the state had urged the court to deny Wonderful’s request for an injunction. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, arguing on behalf of the ALRB, said Wonderful had failed to demonstrate that the card check law caused “irreparable harm or any likelihood of deprivation of its rights.” Bonta also argued that the Superior Court lacked jurisdiction in the case.
Santiago Avila-Gomez, executive secretary of the ALRB, said Thursday night that the agency was “carefully reviewing the decision and will not be making further comments at this time.”
The UFW, meanwhile, is pursuing its own lawsuit against Wonderful. The union filed a formal complaint with the ALRB for unfair labor practices, accusing Wonderful of forcing workers to attend “captive audience” meetings to pressure employees to reject UFW representation. ALRB general counsel Julia Montgomery filed a complaint in April, similar to an indictment, alleging that Wonderful committed unfair labor practices by illegally helping them draft statements to revoke their authorization cards.
The company has broadly denied the allegations.
This article is part of The Times equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundationexploring the challenges faced by low-income workers and efforts to address them The Economic Divide in California.
