Farm plans to appeal labor contract mediation decision to Supreme Court

Fresno, Calif.-based Gerawan Farming plans to appeal a recent ruling on labor contract mediation to the U,S. Supreme Court. On Nov. 27, the California Supreme Court upheld the Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation law, which allows state mediators to settle union contracts through binding mediation when parties can’t reach an agreement.“Today’s decision imposes the United Farm Workers on our employees, whether they want the UFW or not,” the company said in a statement. “In this case, since UFW had disappeared for almost two decades, 99% of the Gerawan employees never voted for UFW representation.” According to the statement, many Gerawan employees were not born in 1990 when the UFW last stood for election as their representatives.“Now, despite a history of earning the industry’s highest wages, the state wants to force these workers to pay three percent of their wages to the UFW or lose their jobs,” the statement said.The company noted that currently pending before the California Fifth District Court of Appeals is a petition filed by the Gerawan workers arguing that the ballots cast in a November 2013 union decertification election should be counted.