Catherwood LibraryILR School

Twenty-seven years after the California Legislature passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act---extending to California?s farm workers many of the protections available to non-agricultural workers under the National Labor Relations Act---California is once again on the verge of making labor relations history. Having passed the State Senate in May, a bill that would require binding arbitration in deadlocked farm labor contract negotiations is likely to pass the State Assembly before the end of the month as it is already cosponsored by just under fifty percent of Assembly members. Strongly supported by the United Farm Workers, the bill would allow growers and farm-workers at unionized fields three months of negotiations to reach contracts on their own and another month in mandatory non-binding mediation, before allowing either side to petition the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board for binding third party arbitration.