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California farmworkers are filing a lawsuit to strike down a state law that they say would force them to be unionized under United Farm Workers.

Twenty employees of Wonderful Nurseries in Wasco filed the complaint in federal court this week, alongside farmworkers in New York who are lobbying a similar claim.

The backstory: UFW, the union started by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, has long sought to bring Wonderful Nurseries in Wasco under its purview.

• The union received a major boost by Assembly Bill 2183, which is known as the card check law and was signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022.
• The card check law allows farmworkers to unionize by signing cards offsite instead of holding state-supervised elections. Unions do not have to notify employers under the law and simply can file petitions with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) and the employer once enough authorization cards have been signed.

Driving the news: Things came to a head at Wonderful Nurseries last year when the ALRB announced that UFW submitted 327 authorization cards for employees at the Wasco Facility, which employs around 600 people.

• Although UFW claimed to have a majority in hand, around 150 Wonderful employees told the ALRB that they did not understand what the cards were at the time of signing and also accused UFW of using $600 in federal relief to fraudulently bait them into signing the cards.

The big picture: Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez, Maria Gutierrez and 18 others filed the complaint to challenge portions of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, arguing that the act forces employees and employers to accept government-mandated union contracts through the card check process.

• They are also challenging the card check law itself in a similar case in a state court.
• They argue in the lawsuit that any charges of improper behavior by unions in obtaining the sole bargaining status by submitting a petition with the ALRB can only be dealt with after the union is certified.
• The farmworkers are represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation for free.

What they’re saying: “These farmworkers from New York and California are challenging the use of so-called ‘card check’ organizing campaigns in the agricultural sector,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “But they really speak for countless workers across industries who have faced intimidation, harassment, and other rights violations during card check campaigns just so union officials can seize bargaining control over them and collect dues.”

• Mix continued, “Workers everywhere in the country should have the right to vote in a secure secret ballot election on whether they want a union. And, just as importantly, they should have a right to refrain from union activity and challenge union boss misdeeds if a union they oppose does gain control over them. Card check is a process designed to trample workers’ individual rights.”