Groups that represent Washington tree fruit growers are encouraging members to oppose proposals in the state legislature that would increase the power of unions on farms.

The bills in the House of Representatives and Senate would create new requirements for employers to enter collective bargaining negotiations if more than half of their farmworkers express a desire to form a union through a signature solicitation, sometimes called a card-check. The method would skip secret ballot elections, which are designed to prevent coercion. The bills also would allow strikes during harvest or whenever a union contract has not been adopted or has lapsed.  

“The potential loss of an entire crop from a strike during critical production and harvest windows is the very reason that agriculture was exempted from the National Labor Relations Act,” said the Yakima-based Washington State Tree Fruit Association in a letter to its members. 

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 established the right of employees at private companies across the country to collectively seek better wages and conditions. Agriculture is exempt from the federal law.

Also under the proposed Washington bills, jurisdiction over farm labor relations and collective bargaining would fall under the state’s Public Employment Relations Commission, which primarily operates in the public sector, not agriculture. The commission also has no capacity to prevent coercive organizing outside the state, where many tree fruit workers come from.

“Workers already have the right under current law to engage in concerted activity and voluntary organizing,” said WAFLA in a letter to its members. “These bills go well beyond that, imposing a rigid, high-risk system that can threaten farms, crops and worker choice alike.”

WAFLA, the Worker and Farmer Labor Association, is a Lacey-based organization that facilitates most of the state’s H-2A applications.

To read the bills and support or oppose them, follow these links:

House Bill 2409, Farmworker Collective Bargaining: https://app.leg.wa.gov/BillSummary/?BillNumber=2409&Year=2025&Initiative=false.

Senate Bill 6045, Farmworker Collective Bargaining: https://app.leg.wa.gov/BillSummary/?BillNumber=6045&Chamber=Senate&Year=2025.

House Bill 2471, Farmworker and Additional Industry Collective Bargaining: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2025&BillNumber=2471.

Senate Bill 6117, Farmworker and Additional Industry Collective Bargaining: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?Year=2025&BillNumber=6117.