<p> After a long uphill battle, workers at Gerawan Farming have earned the right to a decertification election, ultimately giving them the right to vote. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board’s (ALRB) November 1, 2013 Order Vacating the Regional Director’s Dismissal of the Petition for Decertification is said to be a victory for workers across California. An election will be held at Gerawan Farming tomorrow, according to a press release.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">In 1990, the United Farm Workers won a contested election when there were far fewer employees at Gerawan. However, after several legal challenges and a bargaining session in 1995, the union abandoned the employees and refused to explain their twenty year absence. Nevertheless, in October 2012, the union sent a letter to Gerawan saying they were ready to bargain, even though a majority of the current employees did not participate in the one and only election that took place over twenty years ago.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"> During the bargaining sessions in January 2013, the UFW proposed that employees be required to pay 3% of their wages to the UFW or be fired. In order to impose this contract on Gerawan and its employees, the UFW invoked a 2003 mandatory “mediation” law that would force the workers to pay 3% of their paycheck to the UFW or lose their jobs. However, because the union had disappeared, there were no negotiations and the workers subsequently had no voice in the “mediation” proceedings. Consequently, Gerawan employees asked for an election to decertify the UFW as their Board-imposed representative.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"> For the second time this week, the Board overturned a decision by the ALRB Visalia office's Regional Director that would have stopped the workers’ fight to hold a secret ballot election. In this latest decision, the Board makes it clear that the Regional Director’s “last minute,” “eleventh-hour charges” in a “late filed complaint” left the Board “with serious doubts as to the propriety of using that complaint to block the election,” according to a press release. The Board rebukes the Regional Director for failing to mention statements he made in Fresno Superior Court, where he told Judge Jeffrey Hamilton that Gerawan and the Board remedied some of the alleged unfair labor practice charges he now claims justify blocking the election.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"> Gerawan workers are proud to be part of the election being held tomorrow and consider this a much-needed victory.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"> Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow as we follow the election process.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p><a class="btn btn-sm btn-primary col-lg-12" style="white-space: normal;" href=" http://www.prima.com/news" target="_new"> Gerawan Farming </a></p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
