Opinion ID: 1281454
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: statutory access rights

Text: The Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA or Act) guarantees agricultural workers the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, [and] to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.... (Lab. Code, § 1152). The organizational rights extended to workers under the Act are not viable in a vacuum; their effectiveness depends in some measure on the ability of employees to learn the advantages and disadvantages of organization from others. ( Central Hardware Co. v. NLRB (1972) 407 U.S. 539, 543 [33 L.Ed.2d 122, 126, 92 S.Ct. 2238]; see also Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 20900, subd. (b).) Therefore, union access to workers is `crucial to the proper functioning of the Act.' ( Vista Verde Farms v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1981) 29 Cal.3d 307, 317 [172 Cal. Rptr. 720, 625 P.2d 263], quoting Silver Creek Packing Co. (Feb. 16, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 13, p. 4.) When the union seeks to engage in organizational activities on property owned by the employer, tension arises between the organizational rights of the union and employees on one hand and the property rights of the grower on the other. Accommodation of the various interests ... may fall at differing points along the spectrum depending on the nature and strength of the respective [statutory] rights and private property rights asserted in any given context. ( Hudgens v. NLRB (1975) 424 U.S. 507, 522 [47 L.Ed.2d 196, 208-209, 96 S.Ct. 1029].) As the majority note, the United States Supreme Court enunciated the federal rule governing union access to the work site in Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox, supra, 351 U.S. 105. [A]n employer may validly post his property against nonemployee distribution of union literature if reasonable efforts by the union through other available channels of communication will enable it to reach the employees with its message and if the employer's notice or order does not discriminate against the union by allowing other distribution. ( Id. at p. 112 [100 L.Ed. at p. 982].) The majority acknowledge that the Babcock standard does not govern union access to agricultural labor camps. They reason that the union's right of access to agricultural labor camps is guaranteed under the ALRA because communication with employees is necessary to facilitate the goals of the Act and an absence of alternative means of communication is presumed. While this is a correct statement of the law, further explanation is needed to make clear why statutory access rights in the agricultural labor camp setting are more expansive than in the work site. It is well established that the unique characteristics of agricultural labor make effective communication difficult to achieve whether access to employees is sought at the work site or at workers' residences. [1] Thus, the Board has interpreted the Act to provide a right of access to the work site as well as to labor camps. Statutory access rights vary from one context to another. In particular, the burden of establishing the existence or nonexistence of alternative channels of communication varies according to the context in which the access issue is raised. In the organizational context, when workers must decide whether they desire union representation and, if so, which agent will serve as their exclusive bargaining representative, access to the work site is governed by an administrative regulation established by the Board. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 8, § 20900.) The regulation permits qualified access to employer property for organizational purposes with specific limitations on time and place, and on the number of organizers permitted to participate. This court upheld the constitutionality of the Board's access regulation in Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court, supra, 16 Cal.3d 392. We reasoned that the incidental interference with the employer's property interests occasioned by permitting qualified organizational access was outweighed by the governmental policy in favor of the rights of workers to organize and to collectively bargain. ( Id. at pp. 404-409.) We also upheld the regulation against a challenge that it departed from the federal balancing standard enunciated in Babcock Co., supra, 351 U.S. 105 and effectively created an irrebuttable presumption that effective alternative channels of communication were unavailable. ( Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court, supra, 16 Cal.3d at pp. 413-416.) We reasoned that the Board did not adopt the NLRB practice on the access question because it determined that significant differences existed between the working conditions of industry in general and those of California agriculture. ( Id. at p. 414.) In the postcertification context, after the workers have chosen an exclusive bargaining representative and collective bargaining is in progress, access is necessary to facilitate the right and duty of the exclusive bargaining agent to bargain collectively on behalf of the employees it represents. In that setting, access is governed by the Board's opinion in O.P. Murphy Produce Co., Inc. (Dec. 27, 1978) 4 ALRB No. 106) which held that access questions should be determined on an ad hoc basis. ( Id. at p. 8.) Thus, instead of specific provisions, the Board elected to enunciate general guidelines governing postcertification access. [2] The Board further observed that in both the preelection and postcertification contexts, effective alternative channels of communication were generally unavailable. ( Id. at p. 7.) Accordingly, it established a presumption  rebuttable by the employer  that no such alternative channels exist. ( Id. at p. 8; F & P Growers Assn. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1985) 172 Cal. App.3d 1127, 1132 [218 Cal. Rptr. 736].) In the strike context, questions concerning work site access are governed by the Board's decision in Bruce Church, Inc. (Sept. 18, 1981) 7 ALRB No. 20.) In Bruce Church, the Board recognized the right of the union during a strike to communicate with nonstriking employees. ( Id. at pp. 20-21.) It also recognized the employer's countervailing interest in the continued operation of its business and the nonstriking employees' interest in being free from intimidation or coercion. ( Id. at pp. 29-30.) To accommodate these potentially conflicting interests, the Board: 1) limited the number of access takers to one for every fifteen employees; 2) reduced the frequency of access to less than that which it found appropriate in the organizational context; and 3) limited access to lunchtime only. ( Id. at pp. 29-30.) These guidelines only apply if the union establishes that picketing is not an effective means of communication and that no other effective means exist. All of these decisions, however, govern access to a work site. Questions involving a labor camp require a different analysis. As the majority observe, the Board has held that the Act guarantees the right of employees to communicate with organizers at their homes, wherever those homes are located. ( Silver Creek Packing Company, supra, 3 ALRB No. 13, at p. 4; Anderson Farms Company (Aug. 17, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 67, at p. 21-22; Merzoian Brothers Farm Management Company, Inc. (July 29, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 62, at pp. 3-4.) [C]ommunication at the homes of employees is not only legitimate, but crucial to the proper functioning of the Act. [Citations] An employer may not block such communication. The fact that an employer is also a landlord does not give him a license to interfere with the flow of discourse between union and worker. ( Silver Creek, supra, 3 ALRB No. 13, at p. 4.) We agreed with these principles, and adopted the Board's finding that `When an employer ... uses his power as landlord to dictate to employees that they cannot receive union visitors in their own homes, that action is in itself an awesome display of power which cannot but chill enthusiasm for union activity. The normal effect of such a showing of control over employees' lives is to give workers a sense of futility and thereby restrain the exercise of self-organizational rights in violation of the Act.' ( Vista Verde Farms v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 29 Cal.3d 307, 317.) While an employer has a legitimate property interest in the productivity of employees at the work site, it does not have a comparable interest in the activities of employee-residents at home during nonworking hours. ( Republic Aviation Corp. v. Board (1945) 324 U.S. 793, 803-804 [89 L.Ed. 1372, 65 S.Ct. 982, 157 A.L.R. 1081].) Thus, in the labor camp, as contrasted with the work site, the workers' interest in unimpeded access is substantial while the landowner's interest in restricting access is relatively limited. Accommodation of these interests results in a broader standard of access to labor camps. Accordingly, the Babcock standard ( supra, 351 U.S. 105) is entirely inapplicable; the statutory right of the union and workers to communicate at labor camps exists independently of proof or presumption of the absence of alternative channels of communication.