Opinion ID: 1281454
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Board's Camp Access Order

Text: (4) The Board's order here, like that considered in the first Court of Appeal decision in 8 ALRB 87, mandated unlimited and unrestricted access to the labor camp. The Court of Appeal here held, correctly, that the right of access is not unlimited but is subject to reasonable regulation. ( Sam Andrews' Sons v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 162 Cal. App.3d 923, 936; see also Petersen v. Talisman Sugar Corporation, supra, 478 F.2d 73, 82; United Farm Workers Union, AFL-CIO v. Mel Finerman Co. (D.Colo. 1973) 364 F. Supp. 326.) The Board, as it did on remand after the first Court of Appeal decision in 8 ALRB 87, attempts to justify its access order on the ground that, though unlimited, the order would not sanction abuses by the union and would not prevent the grower from filing unfair labor practice charges if such abuses occurred. Unfortunately, however, the Board's access order is in fact unlimited and is thus fundamentally at odds with the grower's right to promulgate reasonable time, place and manner regulations. First, the order is by its own terms explicitly unrestricted. It orders the grower to Cease and desist from ... [ p ] reventing, limiting, or restraining any union organizers or agents from entering and remaining on the premises of Respondent's labor camps for the purpose of contacting, visiting, or talking to any agricultural employee on the premises. (Italics added.) The grower is further forbidden In any like or related manner [from] interfering with, restraining, or coercing any agricultural employee in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by [the Act].... (Italics added.) Second, the unlimited camp access order is in stark contrast to the field access order. The field access order is expressly made subject to access at reasonable times. The labor camp access order is clearly not. Third, the Board's decision itself expressly  direct [ s ] the Regional Director to seek contempt citations against Respondent for any on-going or further violations of our access orders.  (Italics added.) Finally, the Board itself clearly intended to order unrestricted access as it candidly stated in respect to its almost identical order in 8 ALRB 87. The only plausible reading of the Board's decision and order is that it intended  exactly as stated  to preclude the grower from adopting any limitations or restrictions whatever on labor camp access. In view of the grower's right to make reasonable regulations as to camp access (see infra, section C.2.), the Court of Appeal properly held the order was overbroad and properly vacated the overbroad portion of the order. Its remand to the Board with directions to reframe its order to require the grower to allow reasonable access to the camp will be affirmed.
As just concluded, the Court of Appeal correctly remanded the case to the Board for the purpose of rewording its order to require the employer to permit reasonable access to the camp but, following the lead of the court in the first Court of Appeal decision in 8 ALRB 87, the Court of Appeal in this case added that the Board should make specific provisions in detail, limiting the time, hours of the day or night, number of days per year, number of organizers or United Farm Workers representatives and all in conformity with the views expressed herein. The Board is not, however, the proper entity to establish reasonable restrictions on access in the first instance. [13] Petersen v. Talisman Sugar Corporation, supra, 478 F.2d 73 indicates that, even in cases where the right of access is based on the First Amendment, the owner of a labor camp is the proper party entitled to make reasonable regulations for access. The court stated [w]hile we hold that Talisman must grant access to the migrants in the labor camp, we nevertheless observe that the owner-employer may establish reasonable rules for granting access to prevent unnecessary interference with its business activities. (Italics added, Petersen, supra, 478 F.2d at p. 82.) Similarly, in National Labor Rel. Bd. v. Lake Superior Lumber Corp. (6th Cir.1948) 167 F.2d 147 it was not the NLRB which created the restrictions at issue there. Rather, the court stated that, The Board recognized ... that such right [of access to the employer's property under the NLRA] of an employee or a union representative is not unlimited. Reasonable rules by the employer limiting the exercise of this right, which are necessary in order to maintain production or discipline, will be upheld. The `lights out at 8:00 p.m.' rule in the present case, which would bar union activities after that hour is an example of such a rule. ( Id., at p. 151, italics added.) The nature of restrictions which are deemed reasonable will of course depend upon the circumstances. It is beyond cavil that union organizers and others do not have an unfettered right of access to the camp at all hours of the day or night. (See Velez v. Amenta (D.Conn. 1974) 370 F. Supp. 1250, 1256.) In National Labor Rel. Bd. v. Lake Superior Lumber Corp., supra, 167 F.2d 147 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, applying federal labor standards under Republic Aviation, supra, 324 U.S. 793 to access to a lumber camp, upheld a lights-out rule excluding all visitors from the camp after 8 p.m. The exclusion of visitors from the bunkhouses and restriction of visitation to the recreation hall before lights-out was a much closer question. The court ultimately affirmed an NLRB order permitting access to the bunkhouse upon a showing that employees spent most of their limited free time socializing in the bunkhouse, no evidence that any of the woodsmen objected to union activities in the bunkhouse, and that no rule prohibiting union activities in bunkhouses was in effect in other camps throughout the territory. On the other hand, the United States District Court in United Farm Workers Union, AFL-CIO v. Mel Finerman Co., supra, 364 F. Supp. 326, considering the scope of access to an agricultural labor camp consisting solely of group living facilities, upheld exclusion of all visitors from the bunkhouses and dining hall. Ordinarily, the Court would permit the designated representatives to have access to the facilities (bunkhouse, dining hall and bath and toilet facilities) upon invitation by any occupant. Because of the nature of the facilities ... it is not feasible for [the union's] designated representatives to carry on their organizing efforts within the facilities without invading the privacy of those migrants who have not invited the designated representative into the facilities. Therefore, the realities of the factual situation require that the designated representatives shall not enter any of the facilities to carry on their organizing efforts. ( Id., at p. 329.) [14]
(5) The fact that the employees live at the camp does not preclude the grower from making reasonable regulations governing access to a communal bunkhouse simply because the bunkhouse is the workers' home. The employees' statutory right of access, characterized in some cases as a right to be visited in the home, in fact refers to the right to communicate with union representatives where the employees live, i.e., at the labor camp, not necessarily in the communal bunkhouse. [15] Rather, a reasonable construction of the prior cases supports the view that workers in a labor camp have a right to be visited at the camp (the workers' home). Any rule to the contrary would most certainly impinge upon the rights, both statutory and constitutional, of employees residing in the communal bedroom not to suffer visits by unrestricted numbers of union representatives at any and all hours of the day and night and upon the grower's right to insure peace and quiet for the employees during normal sleeping hours. For example, Merzoian Brothers Farm Management Company, Inc., supra, 3 ALRB No. 62, involved the complete denial of access to the camp by locking the gates of the fenced camp compound at night. In finding such conduct to be an unfair labor practice the Board majority stated: The right of employees who are residents of a labor camp to receive visitors is akin to the rights of a person in his own home or apartment. The owner or operator of a labor camp cannot exercise for the worker his right not to receive visits from union organizers.... [A]ccommodation must be made for the rights of not just the owner and the organizer, but also for the tenant who has a basic right to control his own home life.  ( Id., at p. 4, italics added.) By a parity of reasoning, where the living situation is not akin to one's own home or apartment, and where exercise by one tenant of control over his or her home life by inviting visitors into the communal bunkhouse will inevitably impinge on the right of others in the group living situation to exercise control over their home life, reasonable time, place and manner restrictions may, where appropriate, exclude visitors from a communal bunkhouse. Indeed, a grower/labor camp operator charged with the duty to maintain order in its group housing facilities must of necessity make reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on visitation.