The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute enacted by the state of California which became law on June 5, 1975, and which establishes collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state. The goal of the Act is to "ensure peace in the agricultural fields by guaranteeing justice for all agricultural workers and stability in labor relations." The Act, part of the California Labor Code, explicity encourages and protects "the right of agricultural employees to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." The Act established rules and authorized regulations similar to those of National Labor Relations Act, a federal law which formally protected the collective bargaining rights of most American workers except farmworkers. The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) administers the Act. The ALRB has two functions: To conduct, oversee, and certify representation elections, and to investigate unfair labor practice (ULP) charges and pursue remedies. Administrative law judges and agency staff adjudicate most cases, with the five-member Board serving as a final arbiter.
Background
Collective bargaining rights for most hourly workers in the United States were first given legal protection in 1933 by Section 7a of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Although NIRA did not specifically exempt agricultural laborers from the protection of the Act, the Roosevelt administration—eager to win over farm-state members of Congress—argued that farmworkers were excluded. When the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was enacted in 1935, it, too, specifically exempted agricultural workers due to pressure from the "farm bloc" in Congress. Although a number of attempts were made in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s to organize farm laborers, these efforts were unsuccessful.
In August 1966, the National Farm Workers Association and Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, two unrecognized and relatively minor labor unions claiming to represent farm workers in California, merged to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (the predecessor organization to the United Farm Workers). Adopting the philosophy of pacifism in the face of often violent reaction to its organizing efforts and engaging in strikes, hunger strikes, boycotts and secondary boycotts (including the particularly successful Delano grape strike), marches, rallies, and cutting-edge public relations campaigns, the United Farm Workers (UFW) began organizing large numbers of agricultural laborers into unions. In some cases, the UFW even won recognition and negotiated contracts.
Impetus for legal action
The Salad Bowl strike
Main article: Salad Bowl strikeA series of violent strikes and inter-union jurisdictional battles set the political stage for passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. By 1969, the UFW was on the verge of winning the four-year-old Delano grape strike. But as the Delano grape strike seemed to be ending, an attempt by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to organize farm laborers in the Salinas Valley in California led to the costly "Salad Bowl strike." Six thousand drivers and packing workers represented by the Teamsters struck on July 17, 1970, winning a contract on on July 23 under which growers gave the Teamsters, not the UFW, access to farms and the right to organize workers into unions. Secret talks between the UFW and the Teamsters led to an agreement to return jurisdiction over the field workers to the farm union, but the agreement collapsed on August 23 and 7,000 UFW workers struck the Salinas Valley growers. Violence, sporadic at first but increasingly widespread, began to occur in the fields. On December 4, federal marshals arrested and jailed Chávez. Two days later, an anti-union mob nearly rioted when former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete Rafer Johnson and Ethel Kennedy, widow of slain Senator Robert F. Kennedy visited Chávez in jail. The two unions signed a new jurisdictional agreement reaffirming the UFW's right to organize field workers,
Worsening violence of the jurisdictional dispute
The Teamsters resumed their dispute with the UFW in December 1972, which led to further extensive disruptions in the state agricultural industry, mass picketing, mass arrests, and extensive violence. Many growers signed contracts with the Teamsters on April 15, and thousands of UFW members began picketing in the fields. Mass arrests jailed more than 1,700 UFW members by late July (some county jails had three times the number of detainees they were legally capable of holding), and UFW members made law enforcement officers of beating detainees. Soon the organizing battles between the two unions became violent. "Flying squads" of Teamster members began attacking UFW supporters in broad daylight in the Coachella Valley. The violence worsened when the dispute moved into the Delano vineyards. Seventy farm workers were attacked on July 31, a UFW picketer was shot on August 3, five firebombs were thrown at UFW picket lines on August 9, two UFW members were shot on August 11, and a UFW picketer was shot to death on August 16. Finally, a tenative agreement was reached on September 27, 1973, in which the Teamsters again agreed to leave jurisdiction over farm field workers to the UFW.
The new agreement did not last long. On November 7, just 41 days later, the Teamsters union said it would not repudiate the contracts it had signed. But the UFW now had too few resources and membership to do much about it. The UFW deployed its best strategic weapon, the boycott, and kept up the push for a national boycott of grapes, wine and lettuce. The Teamsters reiterated their pledge to uphold their contracts in November.
By late 1974, many observers were concluding that the UFW was not longer a viable force. The UFW called a few small strikes, defied court injunctions to stop picketing, and continued pushing its national boycotts. But in July it was forced to end picketing at some grape fields near Delano. But the Teamsters were in no better position to win organizing battles. The union had opened a major organizing drive in March 1974 and established a regional farm workers' local in June, but the effort was in chaose by November. Newspaper columnists, however, began wondering in June whether the UFW had any capacity to fight, and by February 1975 had concluded the union had no future.
The Modesto march and the push for legislation
The ongoing fight between the Teamsters and UFW and its effect on UFW's organizational viability led César Chávez to seriously consider legal reform as a solution to his union's problems. Chávez had rejected legislative solutions in the past by arguing that a truly successful union movement must be built from the ground up rather than rely on top-down activity. But Chávez began to reconsider this stand in light of the attacks by the Teamsters. Additionally, the time seemed right for a legislative program: Jerry Brown, long an avid supporter of the UFW, had been elected Governor of California in November 1974. Brown had even hired LeRoy Chatfield, a former high-level UFW staffer, as one of his key aides.
Once in office, however, Brown's support for the UFW cooled. The UFW knew it had to make a strong political showing in order to push Brown and the California State Legislature to act.
The UFW considered more mass picketing, more rallies, and more boycotts, but the union was worried that it had lost the support of farm workers and the public and that such events would point up the weakness of the union rather than its strength. Instead, the UFW settled on a 110-mile (180 km) march by a small group of UFW leaders from San Francisco to the E & J Gallo Winery in Modesto. The organizers envisioned a small but dramatic march that would not require large numbers of participants. Just a few hundred marchers left San Francisco on February 22, 1975. But more than 15,000 people joined them enroute by the time they reached Modesto on March 1.
The spontaneous, spectacular success of the Modesto march garnered significant media attention, and proved that the UFW still had the support of farm workers.
Legislative history of CALRA
The dramatic success of the Modesto march energized the farm labor movement in California, and Governor Brown quickly began pushing for labor law reform. Grower resistance never emerged, as many emplyers were reluctant to continue the fight against the UFW. "The grape boycott scared the heck out of the farmers, all of us," said one major grower, and employers did not want the UFW to start yet another boycott.
Previous legislative efforts
Several previous efforts to enact legislation protecting collective bargaining rights for farm workers had emerged in California between 1969 and 1975, but all had failed. César Chávez had briefly supported labor law reform in California in April 1969, and Conservative Republican State Senator George Murphy had sponsored a Republican- and grower-backed bill the same year which guaranteed the right to organize, imposed secret-ballot elections, and restricted right to strike and to engage in boycotts. But the Murphy bill, as well as a le
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