—story by Matt Milkovich
—photo by TJ Mullinax
In October 2022, Crist Bros Orchards received a letter in the mail from the New York Public Employment Relations Board. The letter stated that Crist Bros employees had voted to unionize, and that the Hudson Valley grower and packer was now required by state law to negotiate employee pay, benefits and related concerns with United Farm Workers, the California-based farm labor union.
This was news to the Crist family. How had their predominantly H-2A workforce unionized without them hearing anything about it? When they approached their employees about the board’s letter, they heard more unwelcome news. Their workers had not held an election to vote the union up or down. They had signed dues authorization cards — many of them apparently without realizing what they were signing. Some of the workers said union organizers had used deceptive and coercive tactics to get their signatures, said farm co-owner Joel Crist.
It was the beginning of a yearslong ordeal for the Crists, one that has yet to reach a resolution. And they’re not the only growers going through this situation. New union-friendly farm labor laws in New York and California have taken effect, and new provisions in the H-2A program — giving guest workers on seasonal contracts the right to join unions — have drawn legal challenges. The Crists and other New York growers have brought a case challenging the New York law.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find an employer who wants to be unionized,” said Bryan Little, California Farm Bureau’s director for employment policy. “It’s like getting an equity partner who wants a say in how you operate the business, but they haven’t invested any equity.”
New York’s Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act, which took effect in 2020, gave the state’s farmworkers the right to organize and bargain collectively. The act includes a “union-friendly” provision called “card check,” said Cornell University agricultural workforce specialist Richard Stup. As opposed to holding an election, card check allows union organizers to simply get workers to sign a dues authorization card, which counts as a vote to unionize. If at least half of a farm’s workers sign cards, organizers can petition the state’s board to recognize their union status. Farm owners don’t get a say in the process, Stup said.
The board has said employees have the authority to decertify a union, but it hasn’t specified the process. Employer groups are pressing PERB for clarification, Stup said.
The Crist family learned all of this the hard way. Crist Bros hires more than 200 workers for its growing and packing operations. About 150 of them are seasonal H-2A workers. In summer 2022, while Crist’s H-2A workers were in a Mexican hotel waiting for their visas, UFW organizers gathered them together and told them a “slew of inaccurate and illegal things” to get them to sign dues authorization cards, Joel Crist said. Many of the workers didn’t realize their signature was essentially a vote for union representation, he said.
Crist wasn’t sure whether any of his domestic workers have been approached by UFW. He believes the union targeted the more vulnerable H-2A workforce in Mexico and is using them to dictate what happens in New York.
The status of H-2A workers in unionization efforts is a point of contention. Unions say the seasonal guest workers can be unionized, and the state of New York agrees, Stup said.
In October 2023, Crist Bros joined with the New York State Vegetable Growers Association and a few other New York specialty crop farms to file a federal lawsuit against the state of New York, claiming that the state’s new labor rules violate the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs maintain that H-2A workers should not be allowed to unionize.
“H-2A workers already have a labor contract that’s determined by the federal government,” Joel Crist said. “We feel (unionization efforts) infringe on federal law.”
Nationwide, new federal regulations governing the H-2A program took effect in 2024 and gave workers the right to unionize without retaliation. Those rules have been challenged in numerous cases, however, and judges have stayed enforcement of the unionization protections for plaintiffs while legal proceedings continue (see “More federal judges block provisions of H-2A rule“).
Meanwhile, the New York case has been appealed and remains in federal court.
The last thing they wanted to do was sue the state government, co-owner Joy Crist said, but their petitions to state and federal authorities did not result in any action.
“The law is not written in a way to protect from bad actors,” Joel Crist said. “It’s ripe for fraud and coercion.”
In February, a federal judge struck down the part of the New York state labor law that said owners couldn’t talk to workers in a way that discourages union organizing, but the judge kept the rest of the law in place. When Good Fruit Grower talked with Joel and Joy Crist in November, UFW was not yet representing Crist Bros employees, and union dues were not being taken out of their paychecks, Joel said.
To UFW secretary treasurer Armando Elenes, the New York lawsuit is just another example of farm employers fighting unionization every way they can.
“They don’t want workers to have representation,” he said. “Employers are trying to do everything they can to get workers to take actions that are not in their interest. It’s about control.”
Elenes said UFW dues authorization cards are written in clear English and Spanish. Union organizers explain the cards’ purpose verbally, too.
“They were fully aware of what they were signing,” he said.
If anything, it’s growers who are coercing workers to try to decertify their union status, Elenes said.
“You’re messing with somebody’s livelihood,” he said. “That’s a big hammer to hold over somebody’s head.”
The California Legislature passed card-check provisions in 2022. Under previous rules, farmworkers voted on union representation by secret ballot, California Farm Bureau’s Little said.
In May 2024, Wonderful Co., parent company of Wonderful Nurseries, the nation’s largest grapevine nursery, sued California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s new card-check system. Little said most California farm employers don’t have the financial resources the Wonderful Co. has, which makes it tough for most to fight card-check certification.
Washington State Tree Fruit Association President Jon DeVaney said an agricultural labor relations act might be introduced in the Washington Legislature in 2025, and as in New York and California, it could possibly include card-check provisions.
“Learning from the experience of these states, it’s important to avoid similar pitfalls in Washington,” DeVaney said. •
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