Opinion ID: 1281454
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Unfair Labor Practice Findings

Text: (3) In affirming the Board's findings that the grower had unlawfully interfered with the union's right of access to the labor camps, the Court of Appeal relied extensively on the first decision of the Court of Appeal in 8 ALRB 87. ( Sam Andrews' Sons v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 162 Cal. App.3d 923.) One conclusion in both decisions was that the federal access rule found in Labor Board v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., supra, 351 U.S. 105, requiring the union to show it has no reasonable alternative means of communication with the workers, is applicable to the labor camp access problem. Although that did not cause the Court of Appeal here to reverse the unfair labor practice findings, we conclude that the Babcock & Wilcox standard is not fully applicable to the labor camp access problem and that therefore some of the language used by the Court of Appeal in both cases was improvident. Babcock & Wilcox involved an employer's no-solicitation rule barring distribution of union literature at the work site on nonwork time. The United States Supreme Court held that a no-solicitation rule could be valid if reasonable efforts by the union through other available channels of communication will enable it to reach the employees with its message.... Conversely, [W]hen the inaccessibility of employees makes ineffective the reasonable attempts by nonemployees to communicate with them through the usual channels, the right to exclude from property has been required to yield to the extent needed to permit communication of information on the right to organize. ( Babcock & Wilcox, supra, 351 U.S. 105, 112 [100 L.Ed. 975, 983].) In Republic Aviation Corp. v. Board (1945) 324 U.S. 793 [89 L.Ed. 1372, 65 S.Ct. 982, 157 A.L.R. 1081], a predecessor case to Babcock & Wilcox, the court had stated by way of example that reasonable alternatives to communication at the work site would not be available in a case in which the employees lived in a mining or lumber camp where the employees pass their rest as well as their work time on the employer's premises, so that union organization must proceed upon the employer's premises or be seriously handicapped. ( Republic Aviation, supra, 324 U.S. 793, 799 [89 L.Ed. 1372, 1377].) Thus, although Babcock & Wilcox, supra, 351 U.S. 105, and Republic Aviation, supra, 324 U.S. 793, discussed the labor camp example in the context of determining a lack of alternatives to communication at the work site, both cases imply that the denial of access to a labor camp would be an unfair labor practice, precisely because of a lack of alternative means of communication at the camp. Although this court referred to the Babcock & Wilcox rule in Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court (Pandol & Sons), supra, 16 Cal.3d 392, that case, like Babcock & Wilcox itself, involved workplace (field) access, not labor camp access. The Board has repeatedly stated in its decisions that access to agricultural labor camps under the ALRA is not only legitimate, but crucial to the proper functioning of the Act. See 8 Cal. Admin. Code Sections 20310 (a)(2), 20313, and 20910 (1976); Mapes Produce Co., 2 ALRB No. 54, slip pp. 7-8 ([Oct. 20,] 1976). ( Silver Creek Packing Company (Feb. 16, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 13, at p. 4; accord, Anderson Farms Company (Aug. 17, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 67, at pp. 21-22; Merzoian Brothers Farm Management Company, Inc. (July 29, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 62.) And the statutory right to communication by the union with workers living in a labor camp has been repeatedly acknowledged by this court. (Lab. Code, § 1152; [11] Vista Verde Farms v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1981) 29 Cal.3d 307, 317 [172 Cal. Rptr. 720, 625 P.2d 263]; Carian v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 654 [205 Cal. Rptr. 657, 685 P.2d 701].) As a case in point, this court upheld Board regulations requiring an agricultural grower, upon proper notification by a union of taking access, to provide the union with a prepetition list including, among other things, the employees' current street address. ( Carian v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd., supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 668.) In Carian, we noted that, in many cases, the employees' current street address would be at the grower's labor camp and that the purpose of providing the prepetition list with current street addresses was precisely to permit employees to receive information at locations other than the work site. We acknowledged the Board's conclusions with respect to field access, that because of `... the presence of employer representatives, the short time available [at the work site] during non-working time, plus the limits on the numbers of organizers who may be present under the [access] rule[,] ...' field access was `... not the ideal setting for extended or thoughtful discussion of controversial issues.' ( Carian, supra, 36 Cal.3d 654, 667, citing Henry Moreno (May 11, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 40.) In light of these practical limitations, the board decided `to intensify employee access to information during the period when that information is most relevant by providing for unions to receive prepetition lists.' [Citation.] Rather than abandon the access rule, the board explained, it considered the `goal [of maximizing employee access to information] sufficiently important, and the constraints imposed on the exchange of information as a result of seasonal and migratory labor patterns sufficiently severe, to warrant attempting these two complementary solutions, rather than selecting between them.' [Citation.] ( Carian, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 667.) Thus, it is clear that the right of agricultural employees and union representatives to exchange information at an agricultural labor camp is guaranteed under Labor Code section 1152 and does not depend upon proof in each case of the inadequacy of alternative means of communication. That is not to say, however, that the question of alternative means of communication has no place at all in the resolution of the labor camp access problems. Labor camp access is subject to reasonable time, place and manner regulation, and the reasonableness of regulations in a particular case may properly involve a consideration of the existence of alternative means of communication. The burden will be upon the grower, however, to show the existence of such alternative means of communication and their bearing upon the reasonableness of the regulations prescribed. The Court of Appeal in this case erroneously relied on the workplace access rule requiring a showing of lack of alternative means of communication. [12] Nevertheless, because the court in fact found a lack of reasonable alternative means of communication aside from labor camp access, it properly affirmed the unfair labor practice finding, even though for an erroneous reason. (See Davey v. Southern Pacific Co. (1897) 116 Cal. 325, 329 [48 P. 117].)