employer need not bargain over decision to sell ranch under California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA), West’s Ann.Cal.Labor Code 1140 to 1166.3, following N.L.R.A. precedent
How later courts described this case
- employer need not bargain over decision to sell ranch under California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA), West’s Ann.Cal.Labor Code 1140 to 1166.3, following N.L.R.A. precedent
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
COBEY, J. *
I concur in the majority opinion in this case, notwithstanding the well reasoned and sharply worded dissent. I do not believe that even an unambiguous statutory provision, such as Labor Code section 1153, subdivision (f), can properly be read in a vacuum.
The subdivision quite clearly makes it an unfair labor practice for an agricultural employer, such as Highland Ranch, among other things, to bargain with an uncertified union. But, as the majority opinion points *868 out, the obvious purpose of this subdivision is to insure that agricultural employers do not bargain with unions that have not attained the status Of exclusive bargaining representatives through a secret ballot election. Here, the union had not only decisively won such an election, but the employer had not sought administrative review of the ALRB’s summary rejection of its objections to the election. The only thing remaining to be done before certification of the union was the formality of certification itself. Under these circumstances it is exalting form over substance to insist that the subdivision constitutes a bar to the imposition upon the employer of a duty to bargain in good faith with the union, notwithstanding its uncertified status.