That’s what it looks like on the surface, but this is not how unions (are supposed to) operate, at least not that I’ve ever seen.
There would have to be a significant number of employees who are in favor or union representation. Note that the article states, “The Gerawans and their workers have been resisting the union power grab.” [italics mine] But if the workers were truly opposed to union representation, the union would not be doing this. The article does not state the percentage of workers who are opposed to organizing. Even the signatures gathered to oppose the union represent only ~20% of the employees. What about the others? Maybe the 20% are old-time employees who have different pay/benefits than the newer employees, or maybe they’ve been bribed or threatened by their employer to oppose the union. That’s why I’m saying that we do not know enough about this story.
Of course, if I have it wrong, and the majority of the employees really do NOT want union representation, then I would agree that the union is operating in a corrupt and unethical way.[/quote]
I thought the most interesting part of that story was the 1st and 4th paragraph below.
[quote]The United Farm Workers muscled its way onto the farm in 1990 but quickly lost support. In that year, the UFW won an election to organize Gerawan workers (with just 536 total votes) and in 1992 was certified by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Yet after holding just one bargaining session, the union lost interest and never procured a contract.
Then, after nearly two decades without negotiations, UFW organizers turned up last October and demanded a contract that would require employees to pay 3% of their wages in dues (between $600 and $1,000 a year). Gerawan also says that the union wanted the company to fire workers who didn’t pay up.
The UFW needs the cash to pay its own bills. Since its heyday in the 1970s, the union has lost roughly 90% of its members. Last year, it spent $1.2 million more than it collected, based on Department of Labor filings. Hitting up Gerawan’s 5,000 workers could double the union’s revenues, and the easiest way to extract the money from workers was to enlist the state’s help.
Early this year, the Gerawans and UFW representatives met to discuss the union’s demands, but in March the union abruptly broke off negotiations and petitioned the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to compel Gerawan into binding arbitration to impose a contract. A 2002 state law allows farmworker unions to sidestep collective bargaining and demand state mediation of first-time contracts. No other labor group in the state has this right.[/quote]
