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Omaha Steve

(99,659 posts)
Thu Feb 11, 2016, 03:35 AM Feb 2016

Lawsuit challenges union rights

Source: visaliatimesdelta

David Castellon

Lawyers for a Central California packing house and a northern California nursery said Wednesday that they’re challenging a 40-year-old state law that essentially allows unions to trespass on agricultural businesses to recruit members.

Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based nonprofit that handles property-rights issues, filed a lawsuit that morning in U.S. District Court in Fresno against the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, challenging a provision of the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

That provision allows union organizers access to agricultural businesses to recruit members and organize workers.

Joshua Thompson, principal attorney for the plaintiffs, told reporters during a press conference at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, that the law “aggressively and systemically tramples on the proven rights of the state’s agricultural property owners by sanctioning organized trespassing by union activists.”

FULL story at link.


Joshua Thompson, principal attorney for the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation, at the podium, announces during Wednesday’s World Ag Expo in Tulare that his organization has filed a lawsuit challenging a 1975 law giving union organizers access to agricultural businesses. Mike Fahner, one of the plaintiffs, stands to his left.
(Photo: David Castellon)

Read more: http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/news/local/2016/02/10/lawsuit-challenges-union-rights/80202238/

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Lawsuit challenges union rights (Original Post) Omaha Steve Feb 2016 OP
ugh Cassiopeia Feb 2016 #1
K&R for exposure. nt littlewolf Feb 2016 #2
Stop union trespassing? WTF? n/t Little Tich Feb 2016 #3
OK...... cynzke Feb 2016 #4
You do NOT understand the History of Criminal Trespass law, these were always anti-union happyslug Feb 2016 #7
What a load of shit... blackspade Feb 2016 #5
the hired goons are dressed the same saturnsring Feb 2016 #6
our country is becoming uncivilized olddots Feb 2016 #8

cynzke

(1,254 posts)
4. OK......
Thu Feb 11, 2016, 09:21 AM
Feb 2016

It seems to me that it is reasonable to allow union reps access to members if the workers are already unionized. And it is legal to try to recruit employees. BUT it does seem UNREASONABLE that the business owner has to ALLOW reps to do their recruiting ON the employer's "private property". If the union wants to court and recruit employees of ANY business, they should do so outside the physical location. Especially if the location is not generally open to the public.

 

happyslug

(14,779 posts)
7. You do NOT understand the History of Criminal Trespass law, these were always anti-union
Thu Feb 11, 2016, 10:47 AM
Feb 2016

Under the common law, unless you did a breaking and entry (A separate offense under the Common Law) is was NOT a crime to enter onto the property of someone else unless you entered the "Close" of a home (The Close was defined as the area around one's home, someone's yard and had to be fenced in).

Entering a place of business was NOT Criminal Trespassing. Entering a Factory or a mine was NOT criminal Trespassing. Entering a Farm was NOT CRIMINAL TRESPASSING.

Now, such entrance onto private property was CIVIL TRESPASSING and as such you could be sued for any damage you did while trespassing, but that was all.

Union organizers relied on this law in the late 1800s, Mother Jones was well known for entering coal mines to organize miners for example.

In the 1890s states started to pass Criminal No Trespassing laws to make it criminal to do such trespassing. Every state passed a Criminal Trespass act, so that Employers could ban union organizers. To make them sound "Neutral" such laws were written to permit anyone to post a sign barring trespassing and such violating such signs would make one liable for CRIMINAL TRESPASSING CHARGES, but the main people to do so were factory and mine owners.

When the National Labor Relations Act was passed in 1934, it was decided NOT to overrule such state laws but instead require employees rights to be posted in any break areas. These are to be posted by employers NOT union organizers for there were questions if the Federal Government could over rule state No Trespassing acts, so the law did not try to do so.

That is the background for making Trespassing a criminal act. Notice making it criminal to trespass was an attack on unionization efforts.

When the above law came to farm workers, a problem arose. One of the reasons the unions did not push to ban no trespassing laws in 1934 was most workers had a long history of leaving work and going to a local bar to take a break after work. That is where most union organizers did they work in the early 1930s. Union Organizers could NOT use bars prior to prohibition for most bars were controlled by the GOP establishment and the owners of such bars would report any effort to organize a union and also report any union organizers hanging out in the bar. The local police, under pressure from the factory or mine owner, would arrest such people for vagrancy. Thus prior to prohibition unions could not use bars to recruit (thus the main area for recruitment tended to be churches prior to Prohibition).

Side note: One of the reasons the Democratic Party became the Majority party in the 1930s was the GOP had lost control of urban bars after Prohibition. The Speakeasies of the 1930s, remained bastions of GOP control (Al Capone's speakeasies were known area of support for the last Republican Mayor of Chicago for example). When Prohibition ended and bars reopened, most states insisted on strict regulations and in those regulations were rules to make sure bars did not became part of the GOP establishment again. The GOP had to agree to such terms for they had made a big deal of being tough on crime, thus the GOP lost control of most inner cities with the ending of Prohibition.

Anyway, with bars re-opening after Prohibition and workers going to such bars after work, that is where Union Organizers would recruit new members. Thus the unions did not see a need to over rule the anti-Union No Trespassing laws in the Federal Labor Relations Act.

A problem appeared in the 1970s and the efforts to recruit field workers in California. Most such workers lived in housing provided by their employers. Unlike the Company towns of the 1930s, no government owned roads existed on these farms and to these homes, these were all private roads (in the Coal Patches of Southwestern Pennsylvanian, that the roads were owned by the local government gave union organizers the right to enter such "patches" and organize the workers. Local Laws prohibiting entrances into such towns were ruled violation of the US Constitutions in the 1930s, thus as long a union organizers stayed on public streets they were not violating any constitutional law. Please note such laws were enforced in western Pennsylvania in the 1920s during the previous efforts to organize the miners).

Anyway, where you could go to organize workers was NOT available to union organizers of field workers in the 1960s. Union Organizers could use public roads but NOT private roads and by the nature of the business, the people the farm organizers wanted to organize where in company provided housing long private roads (and most workers were migrant workers, who moved from one farm to the next during the harvesting seasons, often in trucks provided by contractors who transported the workers). Most of these field workers did not own a vehicle but relied on being trucked from one farm to the next.

Thus there was no place to meet such workers except in the housing provided by the farmers and that was all private property. Given the history of Criminal No Trespassing Laws, the State of California in 1970 (When REAGAN was Governor of California) passed this law making it NOT criminal for union organizers to enter the fields to organize farm workers. It is a narrow exception to the criminal statute of No Trespassing, which itself a law in derogation of the Common Law and as such should be narrowly construed in the first place.

Thus one way to look at the law passed in 1970 was a return to the law as it was prior to the 1890s, union organizers permitted to trespass on private property to organize workers. In many ways that is the best way to look at this law and could be the reason it became law under Reagan.

blackspade

(10,056 posts)
5. What a load of shit...
Thu Feb 11, 2016, 09:35 AM
Feb 2016

But there will still be DU members that will defend this.

The assault on unions is getting unbearable.

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