Genevieve Shiroma, long time member of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, as well as a board member for the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, is the subject of a legal brief to disqualify her from the ALRB for bias and conflicts of interest.

How could the SMUD board and the Ag labor board be tied together in a conflict?

ALRB board member Shiroma hired UFW lobbyist Richie Ross for her personal campaign the same year he successfully lobbied passage of the ALRB’s California Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation Statute. The MMC law empowers the board to write and force contracts on employers and workers.

In September 2002, then-Gov. Gray Davis signed into law SB 1156 and AB 2596, the first major amendments to the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. The MMC law would compel Gerawan and its workers into a state-imposed “contract” that would saddle the employees with the UFW as their exclusive representative.

The UFW won an election to represent Gerawan Farming’s workers 25 years ago. But after only one bargaining session, the union disappeared and wasn’t… Read More

The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board may have just celebrated its 40th anniversary, but this board also has a long history of abusive behavior – toward California farm workers, and farmers and ranchers.

Many are aware of the fight that thousands of workers at Gerawan Farming have been waging since 2012 to oust the United Farm Workers union from Gerawan. The ALRB has clearly been “in cahoots” with the UFW, according to a Superior Court Judge, to force the workers into the union.

But there are many more cases of farm and ranch owners abused by the ALRB, which raise serious doubts about the fairness and objectivity of this California state agency created to defend the rights of farmworkers. And top ALRB attorneys are involved up to their eyeballs, misleading farm workers, as well as the courts.

Some of the obscure cases resurfaced after the surprise gubernatorial appointment last week of Sylvia Torres-Guillen, the controversial general counsel of the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, to Gov. Jerry Brown’s office as special counsel. Many say Brown did this to avoid any more public scrutiny over his appointment of… Read More

The United Farm Workers labor union held a protest rally Monday in Fresno, outsidethe administrative hearing whereGerawan Farming is facing unfair labor charges. Theyare alleging that Gerawan Farming workers are intimidating witnesses testifying at the hearing.

The headline of the story says, “Union workers protest alleged Gerawan intimidation.” The photo caption says, “Workers protest alleged intimidation by Gerawan Farms.”

The intimation by the Bee is that Gerawan Farming is doing the intimidation.

There was nothing in… Read More

A devastating labor union-friendly bill authored by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, which did not pass the Legislature last year, is back, with amendments.SB 25would force a farming employer into “collective bargaining,” which actually is an order written by an arbitrator who forces it on the employer and employees against their will.

If SB 25 is signed into law, the waningUnited Farm Workers labor union stands to triple in size.

It is apparent labor unions are trying to gain what they can no longer win through the secret ballot process and sincere labor negotiations, with agriculture employers. The UFW… Read More

Posing as Gerawan Farming employees, a small group of other farm workers and United Farm Worker union posers protested a meeting of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board Wednesday. Gerawan workers sent out a press release making sure the public knows that the protestors at the Agricultural Labor Relations Board meeting in Sacramento Wednesday were not Gerawan employees. “Every time hundreds of us real Gerawan employees demonstrate, we see a very small group of UFW counter demonstrators, and most of them we don’t recognize,” said Silvia Lopez, a Gerawan employee for more than 16 years. Lopez is also the leader of the thousands of workers who are fighting to decertify the UFW at Gerawan.

Gerawan employees have staged a series of walkouts and protests against the UFW and ALRB. The last protest was July 9 at the Visalia office of the ALRB. Videos of that genuine protest can be seen at the links below:

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<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″… Read More