Workers at a Stanislaus County tomato farm and packing company are the first to successfully unionize under a new California law making it easier for farmworkers to organize, according to the United Farm Workers.
The union said California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board certified the election petition of workers at DMB Packing, also known as DiMare Fresh, based in the northern San Joaquin Valley town of Newman. Barely 51% of the company’s 297 workers voted for union representation, said Santiago Avila-Gomez, the executive secretary of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. The company is disputing the results.
The workers organized under new rules enacted this year by a controversial new California law, which allows farmworkers to vote for union representation by signing union authorization cards, called card check. They’ll be part of UFW, which represents nearly 7,000 agricultural workers at 20 California companies. Although the union founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta is still the most prominent advocate for farmworker rights in California and nationally, its membership has significantly decreased since the height of the farmworker movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
Prior to the new rules, farmworkers voted for union representation via a two-step “secret ballot” process that often took place at their worksite on employer property. In the summer of 2022, UFW members and supporters marched 335 miles from Delano to Sacramento to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to allow...
A federal judge on Monday largely blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out civil immigration arrests at several Manhattan immigration courthouses, after government lawyer...