Labor unions target many non-union businesses across the country for takeover; some businesses successfully fend off the unions, and others succumb. But in California, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, a state agency, works in cahoots with the United Farm Workers labor union, intimidating, fear-mongering, threatening, and uses legal actions filed against farming employers to force them into submission to the United Farm Workers labor union.

But recently, the ALRB has been dealt several legal blows to its efforts to malign Gerawan Farming, and force its farm workers into unionization.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board was created following the signing of the Agriculture Labor Relations Act in 1975 by then-Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, to restore peace in the fields. The California Labor Act states:

It is hereby stated to be the policy of the State of California 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… Read More

Vida Wright and Cheryl Bly-Chester, two minority owned, small business owners, bid a contract with Caltrans to administer the education and mentoring program for the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program. They complied with the rules of the process, spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars preparing their Request For Proposal, and they qualify as a DBE. But they lost the contract by tenths of a point after Caltrans employees changed the documents of the incumbent contractor, as well as the scoring on the incumbent contractor bid, so Caltrans could award it to the incumbent.

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Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown said California has an overpopulation problem. He said the ongoing drought is a sure sign that the explosion of population in California has reached the limit of what Nature can provide.

“We are altering this planet with this incredible power of science, technology and economic advance,” Brown said during a discussion with Austin Beutner, publisher and chief executive of the Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune.“If California is going to have 50 million people, they’re not going to live the same way the native people lived, much less the way people do today.… You have to find a more elegant way of relating to material things. You have to use… Read More

Last Friday, Gov. Jerry Brown’s State Water Resources Control Board ordered junior water right holders to stop diversions of water in order to protect more senior water rights and “releases of previously stored water.” Friday’s announcement only targets those whose rights have been held since 1903. Senior water right holders in the affected watersheds who staked their claims earlier than that year can continue to divert water. And so can environmentalists who together with the Bureau of Reclamation, have been letting millions of gallons of water out of dams so a few fish can migrate to the Pacific Ocean.

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Clint Olivier just announced he’s running for California State Assembly for the 31st Assembly District. If Olivier’s name isn’t familiar, be thankful. He’s not the son of a politician. He’s not from Hollywood. He didn’t get independently wealthy as a hedge-fund manager on oil and coal investments. He hasn’t sold rocket launchers to Filipino Muslim separatists, or offered bribes to FBI agents.

Clint Olivier is a member of the Fresno, California City Council, representing District 7, first elected to the council in 2010, and a former television news reporter. He’s married and has two… Read More

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board is responsible for investigating unfair labor practices in California. However, despite knowing that a former United Farm Workers labor union organizer testified that UFW leadership instructed him to lie to farmworkers, and instructed him to coerce farmworkers to lie in written statements submitted to the ALRB, the state agency has decided not to investigate.

The Agricultural Labor Relations Board decision provides even more evidence that the agency is collaborating with the UFW in violation of state law. According to the law, the ALRB must serve farmworkers’ interests by being impartial between unions and employers. Instead, the state agency is ignoring the evidence that the United Farm Workers labor union orchestrated a disinformation campaign to influence the ALRB – even with a former UFW organizer’s sworn confession that the union leadership had trained and instructed him to organize a campaign of lies.

The former UFW organizer who confessed to the… Read More

A former United Farm Workers labor union organizer has testified that UFW leadership instructed him to lie to farmworkers, and instructed him how to coerce farmworkers to lie in written statements submitted to a state board as official evidence.

This latest explosive news in the Gerawan Farming workers’ fight to oust the UFW shines more sunlight on the conspiracy inside the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, and particularly on its office of general counsel, and the close relationship with the UFW. The ALRB general counsel’s office has been accused of blatant bias in favor of the UFW under its present chief, Sylvia Torres-Guillén.

Lies, Lies and More Lies

The ALRB used lies manufactured by the UFW labor union to put a halt to the Gerawan farm workers’ efforts to de-certify the UFW as their collective bargaining representative. Gerawan Farming is one of California’s largest fruit farms.

The disinformation campaign allegedly was part of the UFW’s efforts to discredit Gerawan Farming, as well as the Gerawan workers leading the de-certification campaign.

The UFW lies and… Read More

A woman’s right to choose is a rallying cry for women across the country. But they are talking about choice over abortions, and not vaccinations.

Parental choice and decision making over childhood vaccinations was removed in California thanks to a state law passed in 2012. Assembly Bill 2109 by then-Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, orders that children will not be allowed to attend public school without proof that parents have been counseled, and children vaccinated in accordance with the vaccination schedule of the federal Center for Disease Control. The only exception to the law is a personal belief or religious exemption – the only way Pan could get the bill passed. However, now-Sen. Richard Pan is back with another bill, Senate Bill 277, to remove even the personal belief/religious exemption, following the measles outbreak at Disneyland in January. “We are in a situation where there are not enough people being vaccinated to contain these… Read More