Supreme Court strikes blow to California organized labor regulations

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday invalidated a 1975 California regulation that had allowed union organizers to visit farm laborers in agricultural fields, finding that the rule violated private property rights.

In a 6-3 decision, delivered in a clean split between conservatives and liberals, the court struck down one of labor icon Cesar Chavez’s most celebrated victories. The decision reinforces a growing concern among the court’s dominant conservative faction that private property rights are under threat from governmental and regulatory infringement.

Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the court’s opinion. Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

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The case arose out of a California strawberry farm’s discontent with a rule originally pushed by Chavez’s United Farm Workers of America. It allowed unions to recruit members on company property three hours a day for 120 days out of the year. Union members took advantage of it and entered the farm before work hours one morning with bullhorns. The owners claimed the disruption amounted to a “taking” of their property.

The case became the subject of a heated debate over organized labor. Proponents of the rule argue that it protected racial minorities, many of whom do not speak English. In a brief describing a “climate of fear” among minority workers, the UFW wrote that the rule protected workers from abusive employers. Those opposed said California was essentially allowing trespassing.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rule. But Roberts took a different view, writing that, in the past, the court has considered the property owners’ right to exclude people from their land as one of “‘one of the most treasured’ rights of property ownership.”

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Roberts added that the California government had erred in giving over its authority to take over property to third parties, union organizers in this case.

“The access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers’ property,” Roberts wrote, ordering that it be overturned.

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