In a rare rebuke, a state labor board ruled that the United Farm Workers of America deliberately misled workers about their rights not to join the union or fund its political activities. The ruling comes amid a continuing national effort by anti-union activists to weaken organized labor's political clout, and as the farmworker group continues to lose membership and influence among California's immigrant farm laborers. The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which referees labor practices in the state's fertile fields, found that the union failed to adequately inform mushroom pickers at a Ventura farm that they could withhold the portion of their dues that fund political lobbying, as allowed by state law.
See "Union misled farmworkers, state panel says", Molly Selvin, Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2007