SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A broadly smiling California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined about two dozen jubilant, cheering farmworkers camped outdoors the state Capitol Wednesday to signal probably the most contentious payments earlier than him this yr, reversing course on a measure to assist farmworkers unionize after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris supported it.
The White House assist pinned Newsom in a troublesome political place after his workplace introduced earlier than Democratic lawmakers despatched him the invoice that he wouldn’t signal it.
But Newsom authorised the invoice solely after he, the United Farm Workers and the California Labor Federation agreed on clarifying language to be thought of throughout subsequent yr’s legislative session to handle his issues round implementation and voting integrity.
The settlement features a cap on the variety of unionization petitions over the following 5 years and can permit state regulators to higher defend employee confidentiality and security, Newsom’s workplace stated.
“Sí, se puede,” the farmworkers chanted as Newsom signed the invoice, echoing the UFW’s longtime slogan — roughly, “Yes, we can” in Spanish.
“California’s farmworkers are the lifeblood of our state, and they have the fundamental right to unionize and advocate for themselves in the workplace,” Newsom stated in an announcement after signing the invoice. “Our state has been defined by the heroic activism of farmworkers, championed by American icons like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Larry Itliong. California is proud to stand with the next generation of leaders carrying on this movement.”
The new regulation will permit farmworkers who present a lot of the nation’s vegatables and fruits to vote by mail in union elections as a substitute for bodily places. Proponents say that might assist defend staff from union busting and different intimidation, whereas house owners say such a system lacks obligatory safeguards to forestall fraud.
It will give house owners a selection between “a flawed mail-ballot scheme or … an unsupervised card-check scheme,” stated the California Farm Bureau Federation in opposition earlier than Newsom introduced the settlement on extra safeguards.
Newsom vetoed related laws final yr, as did his two most up-to-date predecessors.
Democratic Assemblyman Mark Stone added provisions to this yr’s model that might let the regulation expire after 5 years except it’s renewed by lawmakers, and requiring the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to deal with the ballots.
Newsom has been positioning himself for months as a number one nationwide Democratic voice calling out purple state governors, fueling hypothesis that he has presidential ambitions regardless of his repeated denials. Newsom’s PlumpJack Group owns a number of wineries amongst different properties, though the governor put his enterprise holdings right into a blind belief earlier than he took workplace.
The governor’s early reluctance to signal the labor-backed invoice puzzled Shaun Bowler, a professor and dean of the graduate division on the University of California, Riverside, political science division.
“After all, if he does have political ambitions post-governor he will need the unions’ help more than that of the growers,” Bowler stated. “There is a very clear political reason to support the bill.”
Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist in California who makes a speciality of Latino voting traits, learn Biden’s Labor Day assertion strongly supporting the laws as an effort to take Newsom down a notch.
“I think it’s impossible to avoid the reality that there’s a little bit of tension between these two politicians because of Gavin’s posture in leaning into this presidential rumor mill,” Madrid stated. “It’s basically just a reminder of who the sheriff is.”
“So now he’s in a corner because if Gavin Newsom signs it, it’s Joe Biden’s victory, and if he doesn’t, he’s outside the mainstream of where the president thinks he should be on something the Democratic Party believes is of great value to the Latino community,” Madrid added.
However, Biden has lengthy supported the union. He retains a bust of union co-founder Cesar Chavez within the Oval Office and Chavez’ granddaughter, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, is Biden’s director of intergovernmental affairs.
“In the state with the largest population of farmworkers, the least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union,” Biden stated in his assertion.
Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, stated Biden gave the impression to be reflecting his longstanding assist for unions, whereas Newsom had the extra delicate activity of balancing labor relations towards an agricultural trade that is also struggling.
“I don’t think Biden stays up at night worrying about Gavin Newsom,” Pitney stated, and is extra centered on rallying union assist for Democrats within the midterm elections.
Harris additionally tweeted Biden’s assertion, including that “California farm workers have gone above and beyond” to feed Americans.
Adding to the stress, the struggling UFW lately rejoined the umbrella California Labor Federation. The challenge of farmworker unionization turned extra vital to labor in 2020 after the U.S. Supreme Court — a favourite Newsom goal — dominated that union organizers had no proper to entry farmers’ properties to speak to their staff.
Still, Democrats have been giving the UFW outsized and symbolic significance for 50 years that stereotypes Latino voters and attracts consideration away from way more vital and widespread financial issues, argued Madrid.
“These are important issues but less than 1% of Latinos are farmworkers. Let’s quit pretending like this is the reality of the Latino experience in modern America,” Madrid stated. “It’s so marginalizing (that) it’s offensive.”
Newsom signed a special union-backed invoice on Labor Day, making a Fast Food Council empowered to set minimal requirements for wages, hours and dealing situations in California. The restaurant trade moved to dam it a day later.
“That gets him some credit” with Black and Latino staff as he runs for reelection in November, however most already had been prone to assist him over his Republican challenger, Pitney stated.
