Court Opinion

ID: 9572656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:43:30.762121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:46.414345
License: Public Domain

*484RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority affirms the trial court’s order granting to striking farm workers and their union representatives direct access to a grower’s property, despite the absence of any formal rule or regulation by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) authorizing such entry or specifying the guidelines and conditions precedent thereto. The majority argues that allowance of strike access “was clearly related to a major purpose of the ALRA — to ‘ensure peace in the agricultural fields . . . . ’ [Citation.]” (Ante, p. 480.) I wholly disagree, believing that to allow such a direct confrontation between strikers and growers without the benefit of any definitive ALRB regulations, which have been adopted following industry-wide hearings and negotiations between adverse parties, is most calculated to ensure strife rather than peace in the fields. This strike arose from farm labor disputes which, in the words of the majority, had been “marked by numerous incidents of violence.” (Ante, p. 472.) In light of the history of violence which has been experienced during similar confrontations when there are no guidelines, the encouragement of such access during a strike impresses me as most unwise. In my view, the trial court abused its discretion in doing so.
The majority quotes in part from a legislative preamble to the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA; Lab. Code, § 1140 et seq.), but fails to refer to the following portion of that same preamble: “This enactment is intended to bring certainty and a sense of fair play to a presently unstable and potentially volatile condition in the state.” (Italics added; see Note in Deerings Ann. Lab. Code (1976 ed.) foll. § 1140.) Thus, in the Legislature’s view, with which I fully concur, farm labor peace is best achieved through establishment of rules of law which provide certainty and fairness in an otherwise “unstable and potentially volatile” industry. Is this certainty, fairness, and stability better achieved by case-by-case, piecemeal adjudication or by the enforcement of administrative rules negotiated after full, industry-wide hearings?
The ALRA, of course, contains no provisions governing strike access. Instead, the ALRA delegates to the ALRB the task of formulating rules and regulations “tiecessary to carry out” the ALRA’s policies. (Lab. Code, § 1144.) With particular reference to access rights, in 1975, the ALRB promulgated regulations which granted a qualified right of preelection access to growers’ premises by farm labor organizers for purposes of meeting and talking with farm workers. (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 8, pt. II, ch. 9, §§ 20900-20901, pp. 1051-1053.) These regulations contain elaborate guidelines, restrictions and condi*485tians limiting the right of access and the time, place and manner of entry. In the course of adopting these regulations, the ALRB itself expressly found that: “The legislatively declared purpose of bringing certainty and a sense of fair play to a presently unstable and potentially volatile condition in the agricultural fields of California can best be served by the adoption of rules on access which provide clarity and predictability to all parties. Relegation of the issues to case-by-case adjudication or the adoption of an overly general rule would cause further uncertainty and instability and create delay in the final determination of elections.” (§ 20900, subd. (d), italics added.)
In approving the foregoing principle we accepted the ALRB’s administrative access regulations, based in part upon the foregoing ALRB finding that labor peace can best be served by the adoption of detailed rules and regulations rather than case-by-case confrontation. (Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court (1976) 16 Cal.3d 392, 416 [128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687].) Why, six years later, do we now reverse our position? Nothing has happened in the fields in the ensuing six years which would justify this 180 degree shift in direction. Granting direct access to the grower’s property at best is a risk-taking business. During an active strike, when feelings and mutual distrust are high, the danger of violent confrontation is greatly enhanced.
As recently observed by an appellate court in a case involving the ALRB’s failure to promulgate regulations before granting the ALRB’s own agents access to growers’ property, “We are not here dealing with a rule of internal administration or a procedural requirement affecting the internal workings of the ALRB, but rather with a rule of access which involves an unconsented invasion, a technical trespass on private property. Such a right is protected by both the state and federal Constitutions. While rights in property are not absolute, nevertheless, any impingement thereon should only be made subject to reasonable limitations.
“Furthermore, the ad hoc disposition or impairment of rights of this magnitude and nature does not further the express purposes of the Act. The ad hoc approach to such an issue may — did—lead to confrontation, to disruption of the labor peace. Thus, one of the prime objectives of the Act is thwarted by an invasion of a property right without the opportunity of hearing and care and preciseness in adjudication of the various factors which are necessary to authorize a limited entry.” (San Diego *486Nursery Co. v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. (1979) 100 Cal.App. 3d 128, 142 [160 Cal.Rptr. 822].) I fully concur in such an analysis.
In my view, the trial court abused its discretion in granting strike access in the absence of some enabling ALRB regulation, formulated after a full notice and hearing to all interested parties in the industry. As noted by the San Diego Nursery court, quoting from Justice William O. Douglas’ dissent in NLRB v. Wyman-Gordon Co. (1969) 394 U.S. 759, 777-779 [22 L.Ed.2d 709, 721-722, 89 S.Ct. 1426], “‘The rule-making procedure performs important functions. It gives notice to an entire segment of society of those controls or regimentation that is forthcoming. It gives an opportunity for persons affected to be heard ....
. . . Agencies discover that they are not always repositories of ultimate wisdom; they learn from the suggestions of outsiders and often benefit from that advice ....
“‘This is a healthy process that helps make a society viable. The multiplication of agencies and their growing power make them more and more remote from the people affected by what they do and make more likely the arbitrary exercise of their powers. Public airing of problems through rule making makes the bureaucracy more responsive to public needs and is an important brake on the growth of absolutism in the regime that now governs all of us. . . .
“‘Rule making is no cure-all; but it does force important issues into full public display and in that sense makes for more responsible administrative action.’ [Citation.]” (100 Cal.App.3d at pp. 142-143.)
From the foregoing, I conclude that if ALRB rules and regulations are deemed an essential prerequisite to preelection access to a grower’s property and to board-ag&nt access, a fortiori, there is a need for such rules and regulations before permitting strike access. The point was very well put by Justice Scott speaking for the majority of the Court of Appeal in this case: “[Assuming only for the sake of argument that a limited right to strike access is constitutionally permissible, we see the need to regulate access by rule as even greater during a strike, when increased tension among grower, striker, and nonstriker exacerbates the possibility of violent confrontation.” (Fn. omitted.)
*487The majority misses a golden opportunity to apply principles heretofore approved both by us and by the ALRB in preelection and agency access contexts, to the much more heated and tense atmosphere of an ongoing strike. By following our own precedents not only would we be consistent but, in my view, we would thereby reduce the risks of con-, frontation which can lead to the flashpoints of violence.
I would reverse the judgment.