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SCOTUS Cuts Off Union Organizers’ Access to Farm Workers in Major Defeat for Organized Labor

HeadlineJun 24, 2021

In another Supreme Court decision Wednesday, justices ruled 6 to 3 that a California labor law violated the constitutional rights of property owners by giving union organizers access to workers on privately owned farms during their work breaks. The ruling strikes down a crucial part of a landmark 1975 labor law that was the nation’s first to recognize agricultural workers’ rights to collective bargaining. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, “The access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers’ property.”

It’s a devastating blow to the United Farm Workers. In a statement, the union said, “The Supreme Court ruling makes a racist and broken farm Labor system even more unequal for farm workers. … This decision denies workers the right to use breaks to freely discuss whether they want to have a union.”

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