Los Angeles-based Wonderful Co. the worlds largest pistachio and almond grower, the purveyor of Fiji Water, Pom pomegranate juice and Justin wines, and owner of the Teleflora flower service wants you to know that its committed to sustainable farming and business practices and sees its employees as a guiding force for good.
Wonderfuls owners, the Beverly Hills billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick, say their calling is to leave people and the planet better than we found them.
Heres another side of the company. Since February, it has been engaged in a ferocious battle with the United Farm Workers over the UFWs campaign to unionize more than 600 Wonderful Nurseries workers in the Central Valley.
Having lost a series of motions before the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board to delay a mandate that it reach a contract with the UFW as soon as June 3 or have terms imposed by the board, Wonderful on Monday unleashed a nuclear attack: a lawsuit seeking to have the 2022 and 2023 state laws governing the unionization process declared unconstitutional.
If it succeeds, Californias legal protections for farmworkers could be rolled back to conditions that prevailed before Csar Chavezs campaigns for farm unionization in the 1960s.
This is an attack on farmworkers rights, says Elizabeth Strater, the UFWs director of strategic campaigns. Farm employers will do everything they can to prevent workers from empowering themselves and lifting themselves out of poverty.
Wonderfuls lawsuit takes a page from arguments made against the National Labor Relations Board by Trader Joes and Elon Musks SpaceX. Both companies, facing NLRB regulatory actions, are contending that the NLRB, which Congress established in 1935, is unconstitutional.
Wonderful contends that provisions of the states agricultural labor code violate its rights of due process guaranteed by both the state and U.S. constitutions.
At issue is a UFW drive to represent more than 600 of Wonderful Nurseries employees that began in early 2023. The UFW ultimately presented the labor board with signed cards from more than half the employees giving the UFW authority to represent them in collective bargaining on a contract, a process known as a card check.