Gerawan Farming, Inc. v. Agric. Labor Relations Bd., S227243

• Decision Date: 27 November 2017
• Docket Number: S227243
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: GERAWAN FARMING, INC., Petitioner, v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent; United Farm Workers of America, Real Party in Interest.

3 Cal.5th 1118

405 P.3d 1087

225 Cal.Rptr.3d 517

GERAWAN FARMING, INC., Petitioner,

v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent;United Farm Workers of America, Real Party in Interest.

S227243

Supreme Court of California

Filed November 27, 2017

Michael P. Mallery, Fresno; Irell & Manella, David A. Schwarz ; Georgeson, Belardinelli and Noyes, Georgeson & Belardinelli, C. Russell Georgeson, Fresno; Barsamian & Moody and Ronald H. Barsamian, Fresno, for Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Luke A. Wake; Damien M. Schiff, Sacramento; Benbrook Law Group, Bradley A. Benbrook, Sacramento, Stephen M. Duvernay ; Walter & Wilhelm Law Group, Paul J. Bauer, Fresno; McCormick, Barstow, Sheppard, Wayte & Carruth and Anthony Raimondo, for National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, Cato Institute, California Farm Bureau Federation, California Fresh Fruit Association, Western Growers Association and Ventura County Agricultural Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Walter & Wilhelm Law Group, Paul J. Bauer, Fresno; Raimondo & Associates, Anthony Raimondo, Gerardo V. Hernandez and Jasmine Shams, Fresno, for Silvia Lopez as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Carl G. Borden, Robert P. Roy, John C. Eastman, Orange, Anthony T. Caso, Sacramento, and Jason E. Resnick, for Western Growers Association, California Farm Bureau Federation, Agricultural Council of California, California Citrus Mutual, California Grape and Tree Fruit League, Grower–Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, Nisei Farmers League, and Ventura County Agricultural Association as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Carl G. Borden for California Farm Bureau Federation as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Robert P. Roy for Ventura County Agricultural Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

John C. Eastman, Orange, and Anthony T. Caso, Sacramento, for Center of Constitutional Jurisprudence as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Jason E. Resnick for Western Growers Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner and for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Kathleen A. Kenealy, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gregory D. Brown, Deputy State Solicitor General, Douglas J. Woods, Assistant Attorney General, Constance L. LeLouis, Mark R. Beckington and Benjamin M. Glickman, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendant and Respondent.

Martínez Aguilasocho & Lynch, Mario Martínez, Thomas P. Lynch, Edgar I. Aguilasocho, Bakersfield; Altshuler Berzon, Scott A. Kronland, Danielle Leonard and Jonathan Weissglass, San Francisco, for Real Party in Interest and Respondent.

Liu, J.

In 1975, the Legislature enacted the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) "to encourage and protect the right of agricultural employees to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor." ( Lab. Code, § 1140.2 ; all statutory references are to this code unless otherwise specified.) The ALRA established an elaborate framework governing the right of agricultural workers to organize themselves into unions to engage in collective bargaining with their employers. ( Agricultural Labor Relations Bd. v. Superior Court(1976) 16 Cal.3d 392, 398, 128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687 ( ALRB I ); see § 1140 et seq.) It also created the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB or the Board) and granted it "specific powers and responsibilities of administration, particularly in conducting and certifying elections and in investigating and preventing unfair labor practices." ( ALRB I, at p. 399, 128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687.)

Twenty-five years later, the Legislature determined that additional legislation was necessary to fulfill the goals of the ALRA because it had proven ineffective at facilitating the negotiation and completion of collective bargaining agreements. The Legislature therefore enacted the ALRA's "mandatory mediation and conciliation" (MMC) provisions to "ensure a more effective collective bargaining process between agricultural employers and agricultural employees." (Stats. 2002, ch. 1145, § 1, p. 7401.) In certain cases in which an employer and a labor union have failed to reach a first contract, either party may invoke MMC, which involves a mediation process before a neutral mediator. (§ 1164 et seq. (the MMC statute).) If the parties do not reach an agreement on all terms through mediation, the mediator resolves the disputed terms and submits a proposed contract to the Board, which can then impose that contract on the parties.

In this case, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) filed an MMC request with the Board after failing to reach a collective bargaining agreement with petitioner Gerawan Farming, Inc. (Gerawan). When mediation similarly failed to produce an agreement, the mediator submitted a report fixing the contractual terms, which the Board adopted in its final order. Gerawan petitioned for review of the Board's order, contending, among other things, that the MMC statutory scheme was unconstitutional. The Court of Appeal agreed, holding that "the MMC statute on its face violates equal protection principles" and that it "improperly delegated legislative authority." In so holding, the Court of Appeal adopted the reasoning of the dissent in Hess Collection Winery v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd.(2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 1584, 1611, 45 Cal.Rptr.3d 609 (dis. opn. of Nicholson, J.) ( Hess ), in which the court upheld the MMC statute against a similar constitutional challenge (see id. at pp. 1603–1610, 45 Cal.Rptr.3d 609 (maj. opn.)). We granted review to resolve this conflict, and we conclude that the MMC statute neither violates equal protection nor unconstitutionally delegates legislative power.

We also granted review to resolve an important statutory question. In arguing that the final order should be set aside, Gerawan also claimed that the UFW, the labor union certified as the bargaining representative under the ALRA, had abandoned its employees after a lengthy absence and therefore forfeited its status as representative. Applying the settled rule that a union remains certified until decertified by the employees in a subsequent election, the Board concluded that the ALRA precludes employers from raising an abandonment defense to an MMC request. The Court of Appeal acknowledged the validity of the general rule but held that an employer may raise an abandonment defense against a union's demand to invoke MMC because MMC is "a postbargaining process" materially different from ordinary collective bargaining.

We hold that the distinction drawn by the Court of Appeal is untenable and that employers may not refuse to bargain with unions—whether during the ordinary bargaining process or during MMC—on the basis that the union has abandoned its representative status. As the Board and lower courts have consistently observed, the Legislature intended to reserve the power to decertify labor organization representatives to employees and labor organizations alone. Allowing employers to raise an abandonment defense would frustrate that intent and undermine the ALRA's comprehensive scheme of labor protections for agricultural employees.

I.

The Legislature enacted the ALRA in 1975 to "ensure peace in the agricultural fields by guaranteeing justice for all agricultural workers and stability in labor relations." (Stats. 1975, 3d Ex. Sess., ch. 1, § 1, p. 4013.) "To achieve this goal, the act declares the right of agricultural employees to organize themselves into unions and to engage in collective bargaining, free from intimidation by either employers or union representatives." ( ALRB I, supra, 16 Cal.3d at p. 398, 128 Cal.Rptr. 183, 546 P.2d 687 ; see § 1140.2.) In enacting the ALRA, the Legislature intended to fill a gap in the labor protections afforded by the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which exempts "any individual employed as an agricultural laborer." ( 29 U.S.C. § 152(3) ; see Lab. Code, § 1140.4 [defining "agricultural employee" as "those employees excluded from the coverage of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, as agricultural employees"].) Accordingly, the ALRA identifies a number of unfair labor practices and other unlawful acts (§§ 1153, 1154, 1154.5, 1155.4, 1155.5), and empowers the Board to investigate, prevent, and remedy such practices (§ 1160).

The Board's other primary duty is to oversee and certify the results of bargaining representative elections. Under the ALRA, "[r]epresentatives designated or selected by a secret ballot for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the agricultural employees in the bargaining unit shall be the exclusive representatives of all the agricultural employees in such unit for the purpose of collective bargaining with respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment." (§ 1156; see § 1156.3 [setting forth the election process].) The ALRA also provides a process by which employees may petition to decertify a labor organization as their representative. (§ 1156.7.) Once a bargaining representative is certified, the ALRA requires the employer and the representative to "bargain collectively in good faith" in order to reach an agreement "with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment." (§ 1155.2, subd. (a).) The obligation to bargain in good faith "does not compel either party to agree to a proposal." (Ibid.)

In the decades that followed, it became clear that the ALRA had not resulted in the widespread adoption of collective bargaining...