Newsom reverses course and signs farmworker bill backed by Biden

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Wednesday making it easier for farmworkers to unionize in California — a reversal from earlier threats to veto the bill that came after President Joe Biden and other Democratic heavyweights threw their support behind it.

Newsom walked outside the sunbaked front steps of the state Capitol and signed the bill in front of a small gathering organized by the United Farm Workers, the iconic union founded by the late Cesar Chavez whose members had kept up a monthslong vigil in Sacramento in support of the bill.

“California’s farmworkers are the lifeblood of our state, and they have the fundamental right to unionize and advocate for themselves in the workplace,” Newsom said in a statement Wednesday.

Newsom made no mention of the fact that he had said he could not support the bill in its current form just before it passed near the end of the legislative session. His office said it had reached a “supplemental agreement” with the UFW and the California Labor Federation on future legislation that would enable labor regulators to “adequately protect worker confidentiality.”

The agreement with the governor’s office eliminates a provision of the bill that would allow mail-in union elections. In its place, workers will be allowed to join UFW by signing a card, a system long sought by organizers.

Newsom had previously said he opposed mail-in voting because of security concerns, though California uses it to allow the public to vote in statewide elections.

The agreement would also set a cap of 75 certified union elections per year.

The fate of Assembly Bill 2183 drew national attention in recent weeks after Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats threw their weight behind the measure.

That wave of support came after a spokesperson for Newsom’s office issued a statement last month that the governor couldn't “support an untested mail-in election process that lacks critical provisions to protect the integrity of the election.” His office issued that message the night before thousands of marchers organized by the United Farm Workers reached the Capitol. Newsom declined to personally meet with the union the following day.

The embarrassing rebuke from the top levels of the Democratic Party landed as Newsom wades further into national politics, clashing with Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

State law requires that farmworkers cast secret ballots in-person at a designated polling place, a system backed by Chavez and UFW leaders when farmworkers were first guaranteed the right to unionize in 1975. Worker advocates have since soured on that process, arguing that a change to state law is necessary as the number of farmworkers who are covered by collective bargaining agreements has plummeted since peaking in the 1970s.

Less than 1 percent of California’s 800,000 farmworkers are unionized, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a fact that bill supporters link to fear among workers of being deported for supporting union efforts. The share of undocumented farmworkers has risen from 13 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 70 percent today.

Farmers and business groups opposed the bill, dismissing it as an attempt by UFW to increase membership.

“The California Farm Bureau is deeply disappointed in Gov. Newsom’s decision to sign the misguided union organizing legislation,” California Farm Bureau President Jamie Johansson said in a statement. “Farm Bureau stands with California’s agricultural employees and will continue to defend their right to make uncoerced choices about union representation.”

The Democratic governor has maintained that while he supports expanding union access in the agricultural sector, mail-in voting rules should mirror federal standards established under the National Labor Relations Board. That system requires employers be given prior notice of an election date, which bill supporters say would put undocumented workers at risk of deportation prior to casting a vote.

AB 2183, as currently written, will give agricultural businesses the option to sign an agreement to not interfere with a union’s attempt to organize and allow mail-in elections, or be subject to a process in which workers could vote simply by signing a union representation card. That first option will be erased once the planned amendment is passed.

Newsom had revealed little publicly about his thinking before he signed the bill into law. Just three hours earlier, at a news conference in San Francisco, he deflected questions about the issue.

“I've got four hundred bills on my desk, and I've got less than 72 hours,” Newsom said. “And so we’ll be working on that many other bills, and then the next one, when I get back to Sacramento.”