Ag Worker's and Unions Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, this is today’s Fruit Grower Report. If growing crops is your livelihood, you know time can be of the essence. So, bringing in labor unions for ag workers could cause delays the crops couldn’t handle.
Enrique Gastelum, CEO of WAFLA, the Worker and Farmer Labor Association, says labor negotiations and bargaining take a lot of time we simply don’t have in agriculture …
GASTELUM … “I wouldn’t say it necessarily harms the worker on a direct basis, but for me having this rule in place and forcing an employer to have to enter into a collective bargaining or at the whim of some third-party union, it’s now going to drive a wedge between workers and employers where we’ve been able to have open, honest conversations with each other.”
And what if, Gastelum asks, you come to regret your decision? …
GASTELUM … “Because let’s face it, any time collective bargaining starts, you’re now putting walls up on both sides and we have heard in some cases, on some union-represented farms, where workers, after some years, are saying, what am I really getting out of this? I don’t know if I want to be part of a union.”
Good intentions, Gastelum says are one thing …
GASTELUM … “People advocating for you may think this is a great thing, but it could end up driving a wedge between you and your employer and shutting off communications that you might normally want to be able to have with them.”
Gastelum says many don’t appreciate the effect unions could have on agriculture, not just in the Pacific Northwest, but nationally.
