Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 12/5/17

After the California Supreme Court handed the United Farm Workers union a major win last week, agriculture growers and labor organizers alike are wondering how the decision could reverberate.

The court upheld a state law that calls for third-party mediation to settle union contracts when growers and farm workers fail to come to a timely agreement on their own. The ruling, related to dispute between Fresno-based Gerawan Farming and the union, keeps in place a 2002 "Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation" law that allows the state's Agricultural Labor Relations Board to call on binding mediation to settle contracts.

Gerawan had argued that the law was unconstitutional, but the court found it ensured that all parties were treated fairly. Farm workers hired by labor contractors will also be covered by union contracts arranged with growers.

Unusual circumstances: The battle between Gerawan and UFW has been brewing for over four years. Gerawan says that UFW abandoned the company's more than 3,000 farm workers for two decades after failing to represent them or charge dues. Only in recent years, Gerawan alleges, has UFW reappeared and begun to use the state law to unionize the farm's workers and fight for third-party arranged contracts. 

What's the magnitude of the decision? Although the 15-year-old law is unique to California, Jason Resnick, vice president and general counsel of Western Growers Association, told MA that other states may seek to enact similar measures. 

"The fact of the matter is United Farm Workers has not actively engaged in activities to try to grow the union, but now the fear is that they'll use this law to push contracts on employers and employees that would fall outside of the normal collective bargaining process," Resnick said, calling it a "sad day for agricultural employers and employees."

Philip Martin, a farm labor expert at the University of California, Davis, told the Associated Press that 50 to 100 other farms throughout California may find themselves in the same position as Gerawan.

The decision also carries huge weight for the agricultural industry nationwide because California remains the largest agricultural-producing state - growing over a third of the U.S.'s vegetables and two-thirds of the nation's fruits and nuts. 
United Farm Workers weighs in: "Now that the Mandatory Mediation Law has been upheld, after four years of stalling, giant Gerawan Farming Inc. should immediately honor the union contract hammered out by a neutral state mediator in 2013 and pay its workers the more than $10 million it already owes them," UFW's president Arturo Rodriguez said in a statement. 

What's next: It's not over just yet. Gerawan is filing a petition for review to the U.S. Supreme Court, so the California law's constitutionality could be weighed.