Artesia Dairy v. Agricultural Labor Relations Board
Filed November 20, 2008, Fifth District
Cite as 2008 SOS 6321

ALRB’s Exclusion of Votes in Certification Election, Proper

United Farm Workers of America (UFW) filed a certification election. In this election, only Artesia Dairy’s (Artesia) agricultural employees who worked for the period of February 13, 2006 to February 16, 2006 were qualified to vote.

After the election, 25 votes were tallied in favor of UFW, 24 votes for “No Union” and 15 votes were still unresolved.

In the meantime, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) ruled that some of Artesia’s employees were not eligible to vote. ALRB sustained the challenges on the seven votes regarding their voting eligibility.

Hence, the above development changed the result tally to 27 votes for UFW and 25 for “No Union”. Consequently, UFW was certified as the exclusive bargaining representatives of the employees.

However, Artesia had no right to question ALRB’s decision unless it committed acts considered as unfair labor practice. Consequently, Artesia engaged in a “technical” refusal to bargain leading to a decision reviewable under the Labor Code.

On appeal, Artesia challenged the decision of ALRB in considering 7 of its employees disqualified to vote, these employees were nephews of Artesia’s owners. ALRB also disqualified some employees as they were not deemed agricultural employees.

The California Court of Appeal ruled as follows:

• nephews of an employer were not “functionally equivalent” to children of employer thus, they may not be excluded from voting in a certification election;
• an employee maintaining the lawn area used for decorative purpose is not an agricultural employee thus could not vote in the election; and
• an employee cleaning the dairy owner’s home and the dairy itself is not an agricultural employee applying the “substantiality” test and when only 16% of the employee’s time was spent on the dairy.