You may have read the United Farm Workers (UFW) union President Teresa Romero’s recent letter to the editor published in Times of San Diego, where she aggressively defends Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher and attacks Pick Justice Action spokesman Jesse Rojas. As a longtime Democrat, it is disappointing to see the UFW continuing to support Gonzalez-Fletcher, as well as policies that are blatantly bad for workers.
What’s alarming about Teresa’s article, however, is that she doesn’t actually address the valid concerns that were raised by Pick Justice Action’s recent campaign. By ignoring the points raised by Pick Justice, and just attacking their spokesman, Theresa missed an opportunity to apologize to farm workers across the state for opposing legislation that would have provided them with more rights as well as apologizing for actively and aggressively opposing farm workers from having their voices heard.
The Pick Justice campaign that launched last month, which President Romero took issue with, highlighted specific bills that Assemblywoman Gonzalez-Fletcher and the UFW actively opposed that would have given farm workers stronger bargaining rights and more say over whether or not they join a union. One of those bills would provide workers with the opportunity to vote on government-written contracts. This would have been a big step forward because as it stands, workers have no say in negotiations of these government-written contracts, and should at the very least have an opportunity to vote on the finalized product.
It is especially ironic that Gonzalez-Fletcher would oppose such a bill, seeing as she has introduced similar legislation in the past for other types of workers in different industries. But apparently she does not think farm workers deserve the same rights.
Another bill that Gonzalez-Fletcher opposed would have required a judicial review before the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) could throw out farm worker’s union election votes. Instead of standing by the workers, Gonzalez-Fletcher stood alongside the UFW in opposing any checks and balances to ensure that the ALRB isn’t arbitrarily throwing out workers votes.
Unions have been fighting to give workers additional freedoms in the workplace for decades, and these freedoms should include a right to choose whether to be represented by a union.
Instead, in cases like the Gerawan Farming incident, the UFW actively opposed the workers who overwhelmingly voted to decertify them. After disappearing from the farm for over 20 years, the UFW returned and demanded 3% of the workers weekly wages. And when the workers held a vote to decertify the union, the UFW wanted those workers votes thrown out. They pressured the ALRB to spend $10 million in tax dollars fighting to keep those votes uncounted through legal challenges and even resorted to lowly tactics like lying to workers who were just trying to peacefully protest a public hearing in order to prevent them from getting in the room.
Thankfully, the workers prevailed and were able to have their votes counted, but the UFW standing so firmly against workers was a devastating blow to the legacy of Cesar Chavez. And the fact that Assemblywoman Gonzalez-Fletcher continued to actively support the UFW throughout this entire ordeal shows that she is not the pro-worker champion that she pretends to be online.
It is ironic that the leader of the UFW, and the Assemblywoman they champion, would oppose bills that would allow farm workers more control over their jobs and their livelihoods. As Gonzalez-Fletcher continues to be held up as a national example of a legislator fighting for workers, I caution Democrats to not blindly get behind a politician or organization with such an anti-worker record.
Bryan Lopez is a Democrat grassroots operative and former commissioner in Los Angeles County.
