Sam Andrews' Sons v. Agricultural Labor Relations Bd.

Citation253 Cal.Rptr. 30,47 Cal.3d 157,763 P.2d 881
Decision Date17 November 1988
Docket NumberNo. 32129,R,AFL-CI,32129
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court (California)
Parties, 763 P.2d 881, 116 Lab.Cas. P 56,348 SAM ANDREWS' SONS, Petitioner, v. AGRICULTURAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent; UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA,eal Party in Interest. L.A.
[763 P.2d 883] Patricia J. Rynn, Lewis P. Janowsky, Rynn & Janowsky, Rynn, Schwartz & Janowsky and Dressler, Quesenbery, Laws & Barsamian, Newport Beach, for petitioner

Daniel G. Stone, Nancy C. Smith, Cathy Christian and Ismael A. Castro, Sacramento, for respondent.

Dianna Lyons, Daniel A. Garcia and Wendy Sones, Sacramento, for real party in interest.

KAUFMAN, Justice.

We granted petitions of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB or Board) and the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW or union) for review of a Court of Appeal decision which vacated portions of the Board's order in the underlying unfair labor practice proceedings against Sam Andrews' Sons (the grower), and which also struck the Board's award to the UFW of costs and attorney fees.

The case primarily concerns the authority of the Board to award attorney fees, the scope of union access to a labor camp for organizational purposes and the rights of a labor camp operator to promulgate reasonable regulations for access to a labor camp.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The grower raises alfalfa, cotton, melons, lettuce and other vegetable crops in Kern and Imperial Counties. It is an agricultural employer subject to the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA). (Lab.Code, § 1140.4, subd. (c).) The Board upheld a 1977 representation election and, as a result, on August 21, 1978, certified the UFW as the exclusive bargaining agent for the grower's agricultural workers. (Sam Andrews' Sons (Aug. 21, 1978) 4 ALRB No. 59.)

There had been a history, both before and after certification, of difficulties between the grower and the union regarding access to agricultural employees at the grower's labor camps. (See Robert S. Andrews (June 10, 1977) 3 ALRB No. 45 [camp rules excluded families and friends of workers from labor camp barracks and camp kitchen, and restricted union organizers to the company park outside the camp compound; Board ordered grower to cease and desist from denying access to buses and premises, including labor camps, to organizers acting "in accordance with Board's access regulations"]; Sam Andrews' Sons (Nov. 30, 1979) 5 ALRB No. 68

[armed security guards at labor camp directed union organizers to meet in the company park outside the camp compound, refused permission to union organizers to enter the barracks, and watched union organizers who did visit workers in barracks; Board orders grower to cease and desist from surveillance of employees during contacts with union organizers].)

A. Labor Camp Facilities

The grower operates labor camps to house agricultural workers at both its Kern County and Imperial Valley operations. The Lakeview labor camp, southwest of Bakersfield in Kern County, consists of separately fenced areas containing two barracks buildings or bunkhouses, a kitchen and dining facility, and an equipment storage area. The separately fenced kitchen and dining facility is connected to the barracks area by a fenced walkway. The entire compound is also surrounded by a chain link fence. Immediately outside the camp is a company-owned park.

The nature of the facility in which the workers here live--a communal barracks--is deserving of specific mention. Each of the bunkhouses at the Lakeview camp consists of a single dormitory room containing 60 double bunks (120 beds) arranged in 4 rows. The two outside rows are separated from the two center rows by aisles six to eight feet wide. Partitions are set up to create three-sided cubicles for two double bunks (four beds). The cubicles are open on the side that faces the aisle. The double bunks in each cubicle stand only four feet apart. Each bunkhouse contains a shower and toilet facility and there is also a "lounge" area approximately 10 to 15 feet wide spanning the width of the dormitory room at one end. A single switch controls overhead lights for the entire dormitory room.

In the Imperial Valley, the grower leases a camp facility near Holtville and operates it for its agricultural employees. There is one entrance to the fenced camp, which consists of four concrete block buildings. Two of the buildings are used as bunkhouses, one building contains the kitchen and dining facilities, and another contains shower and bathroom facilities. The bunkhouses are similar to the ones at the Lakeview camp. Each bunkhouse consists of a single room, approximately 20 feet by 70 or 75 feet in size. There are two rows of double bunks in the bunkhouse. Plywood partitions form cubicles around sets of double bunks four feet apart, in a similar fashion to the bunks at the Lakeview camp.

B. Background--Summer Strike

The unfair labor practices under review in the instant case, and in a contemporaneous separate but similar case, arose against the background of a strike against the grower's Kern County operation near Bakersfield mounted by the union in the summer of 1981. Contract negotiations broke down as the summer melon harvest began. The union therefore mounted a strike among the grower's tractor drivers and irrigators. The union decided not to call out the melon pickers (harvest workers), although some harvest workers did participate in the strike.

Apparently, both the union and the grower engaged in abusive conduct at the grower's Kern County fields during the strike. The grower denied access by union representatives to workers in the fields. The union engaged in massive, sometimes destructive and violent, picketing. There were at times as many as 350 pickets at the grower's fields. Picketing at the fields continued on an almost daily basis from the beginning of the strike in July 1981 through January 1982. The field pickets destroyed several thousand feet of irrigation pipe, damaged tractors and buses, and slashed tires and broke car windows of cars belonging to nonstriking workers.

Pickets were also stationed at the grower's Lakeview labor camp nearly every day from July 9, 1981, through the end of November. The Lakeview labor camp primarily housed harvest workers, who were by and large not participating in the strike, although some of the nonstriking tractor drivers and irrigators also moved to the Lakeview camp compound. There was no In early August 1981 the union obtained a temporary injunction ordering the grower to allow union representatives access to workers in the Kern County fields. After the union obtained the injunction, the nighttime harassment at the Lakeview camp subsided, and picketing continued without further disruptive incidents. Although there was evidence indicating the Kern County strike continued through January 1982, at the time of the conduct at issue in this case the melon harvest was essentially over. The nonstriking tractor drivers and irrigators were no longer residing at the Lakeview camp and by November 1981 the Lakeview camp was occupied by lettuce harvest workers.

damage to property at the camp, but nonstriking harvest workers as well as camp security personnel were sometimes pelted with rocks, dirt and eggs as they went in and out of the camp compound, or attempted to prevent picketers from climbing the fences. In August 1981, picketers at the Lakeview labor camp began night picketing in a manner calculated to harass camp residents. The strikers would use bullhorns, bang on trash can lids, [47 Cal.3d 163] yell at the workers and shine spotlights into the barracks area to prevent the workers from sleeping. 1

C. Camp Access Rules

In the summer of 1981, when the strike among tractor drivers and irrigators began during the melon harvest, the grower began to strictly enforce its previously poorly enforced rule prohibiting visitors from entering the Lakeview labor camp compound. 2

Under the grower's rules, all visitors--including family and friends as well as union representatives or Board agents--were required to present themselves to company security officials and identify the camp resident they wished to see. The security guards would locate the worker and advise him of the visitor's presence. The resident worker would meet with the visitor in the parking lot or in the company park outside the camp compound, but no visitor was allowed inside the camp compound.

D. Separate Similar Case (8 ALRB No. 87)

It was against this background that unfair labor practice charges in both the instant case and a separate but similar case arose. The similar case involved roughly contemporaneous alleged denials of labor camp access by the grower in Kern County, while the instant case involves alleged denials of field access in Imperial Valley and alleged denials of camp access in both Kern County and Imperial Valley. The similar but separate case (Sam Andrews' Sons [referred to hereafter for convenience as 8 ALRB 87] ) was considered twice by the Board (8 ALRB No. 87 (Nov. 30, 1982) and 11 ALRB No. 29 (Dec. 10, 1985)) and generated two conflicting Court of Appeal opinions, as to the latter of which this court granted review. That review remains pending.

Nevertheless, the background of the separate, similar case is significant with respect to the labor camp access issues in this case because both the Board and the Court of Appeal in this case relied on the evidence and the reasoning on the access issues in the separate, similar case (8

[763 P.2d 886] ALRB 87). 3 In addition, to avoid confusing the two cases, it is necessary to outline the facts and procedural history of the separate but similar case.

1. The Board's Original Order

In 8 ALRB 87 the grower was charged with two instances of denying union representatives access to the Lakeview labor camp on October 28 and 29, 1981. The grower admitted its agents refused admission to the bunkhouses or the dining...

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