Farm Workers Voted 5-1 to Leave Union

California farm workers voted out their union by a 5-1 margin in 2013, but state regulators withheld those results until a federal court ordered them released.

Employees at Fresno-based Gerawan Farming voted overwhelmingly to cut ties with the United Farm Workers union in a decertification election five years ago. The extent of the union's defeat, however, was not known until Tuesday when the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) finally released the results. The ballots cast showed that 1,098 employees voted to leave the union, while only 197 voted to stay—a margin in excess of the 640 ballots the union sought to disqualify, which played a major role in the ALRB decision not to tally the vote.

Gerawan said allowing the public and workers to know the results of the secret ballot election gives a clear picture of a workforce at odds with union leaders, leaving "no doubt what our employees want." The company called on the ALRB to affirm the right of its workers to decertify UFW as its collective bargaining representative.

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