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Taxpayer Watchdog Takes on UFW

by Bryan Little, FELS COO

Taxpayer watchdog group Sacramento Taxpayers League recently published an interesting article on its website concerning United Farm Worker’s steadily shrinking membership since its claimed peak of 50,000.  Author Katy Grimes speculates that a last-ditch effort to stem that shrinkage may have prompted UFW to try to force workers at Fresno-based Gerawan Farming into UFW membership by mis-using the mandatory mediation and conciliation (MMC) provision of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA).  UFW darkened Gerawan’s door in 2012, after filing what must have been an embarrassing U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) report showing fewer than 3400 dues-paying members.  UFW had walked away from negotiations with Gerawan nearly 20 years before.

Despite UFW’s best efforts to cow Gerawan’s workers into submission, the union’s membership grab is still tied up in litigation, thought UFW boldly claimed more than 10,000 members in its’ 2013 U.S. DOL report.

You can read more of Ms. Grimes’ excellent article at the Sacramento Taxpayers League website.