Last month, the Wonderful Company, worth over $6 billion and owned by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, and who have donated to President Joe Biden and Governor Gavin Newsom, filed a lawsuit against California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board challenging a law passed two years ago by Newsom, that gives farmworkers additional options to gain union representation and exercise collective bargaining rights.
The Wonderful Co., which markets Wonderful Pistachios, POM Wonderful juices, and Fiji Water products, filed the lawsuit May 13 in Kern County Superior Court. In addition to allowing farmworkers to establish union representation through secret ballots, the new law allows the workers to unionize if a majority of them sign authorization cards or submit mail-in ballots.
Some Backstory:
Before Newsom signed the law in 2022, he vetoed similar legislation over concerns about the voting process. The Democratic governor had announced plans to veto it again in 2022, but he reversed course after Biden announced support for the change. He signed it on condition that another method of forming a union, through mail-in ballots, was later removed.
In the lawsuit, the company argues that the card-check law illegally removes employers from the unionization process. Wonderful alleged that even though 327 employees submitted authorization cards out of a workforce of 640, 148 employees later submitted declarations requesting the revocation of their cards. These workers indicated they thought the cards were meant to access $600 in federal Covid relief funds and that they didn’t understand the cards were votes on unionization, according to Wonderful.
“Having been compelled into a constitutionally unlawful procedure that imposes a constitutionally illegitimate certification, Wonderful has no meaningful way to obtain plain, speedy or complete relief other than through an order of this Court declaring that, on its face, [this section of the labor code] is unconstitutional,” the lawsuit said.
The ALRB acknowledged receiving the worker declarations; nonetheless, the regional director of the labor board moved forward three days later to certify the union’s petition and denied Wonderful's immediate stay of the certification.
So what's next?
Under the law, once a union is certified, employers must enter into collective bargaining within 90 days. That would have been June 3 for the newly formed union at Wonderful Nurseries in Wasco, Calif., but there have been no updates from either side. The case is being played out before an administrative law judge who is taking testimony from workers during a weeks long hearing.
About The Wonderful Company
The Wonderful Company is a privately held $6 billion global company dedicated to harvesting health and happiness around the world. Its iconic brands include FIJI Water, POM Wonderful, Wonderful Pistachios, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Seedless Lemons, Teleflora, and JUSTIN and Lewis Cellars wines. The Wonderful Company’s connection to consumers has health at its heart and giving back in its DNA.
To learn more about The Wonderful Company, its products, and its core values, please visit careers.wonderful.com or follow The Wonderful Company on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. To learn more about the company’s corporate social responsibility impact, visit csr.wonderful.com.
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