Three Serve a Few Hours on Farm Panel, Then Resign

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gray Davis appointed three allies to a farm labor panel for a few hours last week--just long enough so they could attend a closed-door meeting and postpone a hearing involving two rival farm worker groups.

Then the three--who filled vacancies left by departed appointees of former Gov. Pete Wilson--quit the panel and resumed their regular jobs.

The three who served for a day on the Agricultural Labor Relations Board were Tal Finney, Davis’ special assistant; D. Robert Schuman, deputy legal affairs secretary, and Bobbie Metzger, special assistant to the chancellor of the California State University system.

Each earned $263.70 for spending a few hours on the board in private deliberations over a long-running dispute between the United Farm Workers and a rival labor group, the California Farm Workers Committee.

The two sides have been feuding since last summer over which will represent workers at the state’s largest strawberry growing firm-- Coastal Berry Co. of Watsonville. The labor board’s action put off a scheduled hearing by a board hearing officer.

Michael Bustamante, the governor’s spokesman, said Davis’ actions were legitimate.

“The governor asked the three to sit on the [board] on an interim basis in order to continue to conduct the business of government,” he said.

Postponing the investigative hearing will give Davis’ eventual permanent appointees a chance “to review matters that come before” the board, he said.

The vacancies existed because two Wilson appointees left the five-member board last year and a third left this month at Davis’ request. Davis had little choice but to tap his friends to fill the slots, Bustamante said.

The UFW, a major player in a powerful labor coalition that helped Davis win a landslide victory in November, applauded Davis’ action.