Growers’ Limits on Union Access to Workers OKd

SAN FRANCISCO —  In a sharp setback for farm labor organizers, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that a grower may impose “reasonable regulations” to limit the access of union representatives to workers in camps on its property.

The justices, resolving a hard-fought legal dispute, invalidated a sweeping order by the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board that had granted United Farm Workers organizers unrestricted access to the employees of a Kern County grower.

Employers can exclude union organizers or other visitors from the barracks-style bunkhouses that serve as the workers’ homes, provided there are other reasonable opportunities for them to meet, the court said.

In an opinion by Justice Marcus M. Kaufman, the court said employees have a right “not to suffer visits by unrestricted numbers of union representatives at any and all hours of the day and night.”

Intervention Allowed

However, the court added that the Agricultural Labor Relations Board could intervene to impose its own rules when a grower imposed unreasonable restrictions to keep out union representatives.

Ruling on another issue, the justices struck down another order by the board awarding costs and legal fees to the UFW in its challenge to the labor practices of the grower in the case, Sam Andrews’ Sons of Bakersfield.

While all seven court members agreed in the judgment reached in the case, the justices were split over the reasoning behind the decision and some of the implications in Kaufman’s opinion.

Justice Allen E. Broussard, joined by Justice Stanley Mosk, argued that the court had failed to acknowledge the constitutional free-speech rights of workers and union organizers and had focused “almost entirely” on the rights of growers to impose limits on access.

“The majority note that camp access is subject to reasonable time, place and manner regulation, but they do not recognize that constitutional principles necessarily define the outer limits of those restrictions,” Broussard wrote.

In another opinion, Justice John A. Arguelles said that on the question of attorneys’ fees, the court had gone further than required and had imposed “an overly broad and unjustified limitation” on the labor relations board’s general authority in unfair labor practice proceedings. The court erred, he said, in saying the labor board can “never” order one party in such disputes to pay the legal costs of another.

The ruling was praised by Patricia J. Rynn of Newport Beach, attorney for Sam Andrews’ Sons.

“What we had until now was nothing less than a permanent easement owned by the union to come into a camp any time day or night,” Rynn said. “This decision allows for the first time a reasonable accommodation of all the interests involved: the unions’ interest in communication with workers, the employers’ interest in their property and the interest in the employees in getting enough rest so they can work the next day.”

The decision drew sharp criticism from Dianna Lyons, counsel for the UFW, who said the decision will make it more difficult for union organizers to reach workers living on grower property.

“Farm workers are relegated to these camps, but by residing there they don’t intend to submit themselves to their employers on a 24-hour-a-day basis,” she said. “Permitting an employer to decide who can visit the workers is tantamount to repeal of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

The case arose in the aftermath of a bitter strike mounted by the union against the grower’s operation near Bakersfield in 1981. Contract negotiations broke down as the summer melon harvest began. The grower denied access to union representatives to its fields, and the union engaged in massive and sometimes violent picketing, flashing lights and honking horns outside the labor camp at night, the court’s opinion noted.

Later, the grower began to impose sharp restrictions on visitors to workers in the labor camp compound.

Charges were brought by the UFW against the grower and eventually, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, agreeing Sam Andrews’ Sons was guilty of unfair labor practices, ordered the grower to desist from “limiting or restraining any union organizers or agents” from entering the camps to talk to employees.

A state Court of Appeal upheld the unfair labor findings but ruled that the board’s order went too far in granting unlimited access.

The board had also erred in making an unprecedented award of attorneys’ fees to the UFW, the appeal court said.

‘Reasonable’ Limitations

The high court agreed with the appeal panel in Thursday’s 41-page opinion by Kaufman, finding that the board’s order violated the grower’s right to impose “reasonable time, place and manner” limitations on visitors.

Instead of the current process, where the board issues rules first, it will be up to the grower to impose rules that will be subject to review by the board, the court said.

In another decision Thursday, the court, in a unanimous opinion by Arguelles, refused to require the reinstatement of a Los Angeles police officer who was not fully advised of his rights before he was fired after an internal investigation of sham bookmaking arrests in 1980.

A state Court of Appeal had held that Officer John D. Williams was entitled to back pay and benefits and that damaging admissions he made to Los Angeles Police Department investigators could not be used against him in further disciplinary proceedings.

Interrogators had failed to follow provisions of a 1978 state law, known as the “policeman’s bill of rights,” requiring that officers be told that while they can be fired for not answering questions, any statements they did make could not be used against them in criminal proceedings.

The justices concluded Thursday that even if Williams had been properly advised, the outcome would have been the same.

Being fully informed of his legal protections could only have provided him with further reason to speak, the court said. Had he remained silent, he still would have been dismissed.

“Because Williams answered the investigators’ questions, the absence of a complete warning in his case . . . could not logically have had any causal connection with his ultimate dismissal,” the justices said.

However, the court refused a request by attorneys for the city of Los Angeles to issue a broad ruling that the so-called “exclusionary rule,” a doctrine that bars the use of improperly obtained evidence in court, could never be applied in police disciplinary proceedings.