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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A broadly smiling California Gov. Gavin Newsom joined about two dozen jubilant, cheering farmworkers camped exterior the state Capitol Wednesday to signal one of the vital contentious payments earlier than him this yr, reversing course on a measure to assist farmworkers unionize after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris supported it.
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The White Home assist pinned Newsom in a tough political place after his workplace introduced earlier than Democratic lawmakers despatched him the invoice that he wouldn’t signal it.
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However Newsom mentioned he accepted the invoice after he, the United Farm Staff and the California Labor Federation agreed on clarifying language to be thought-about throughout subsequent yr’s legislative session to deal with his issues round implementation and voting integrity.
The settlement features a cap on the variety of unionization petitions over the subsequent 5 years and can enable state regulators to raised shield employee confidentiality and security, Newsom’s workplace mentioned.
“Si, se puede,” the farmworkers chanted as Newsom signed the invoice, echoing the UFW’s longtime slogan — roughly, “Sure, we will” in Spanish.
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“California’s farmworkers are the lifeblood of our state, they usually have the elemental proper to unionize and advocate for themselves within the office,” Newsom mentioned in an announcement after signing the invoice. “Our state has been outlined by the heroic activism of farmworkers, championed by American icons like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Larry Itliong. California is proud to face with the subsequent technology of leaders carrying on this motion.”
The brand new regulation will enable farmworkers who present a lot of the nation’s vegatables and fruits to vote by mail in union elections as an alternative choice to bodily areas. Proponents say that might assist shield employees from union busting and different intimidation, whereas house owners say such a system lacks essential safeguards to forestall fraud.
It’ll give house owners a selection between “a flawed mail-ballot scheme or … an unsupervised card-check scheme,” mentioned the California Farm Bureau Federation in opposition earlier than Newsom introduced the settlement on further safeguards.
Newsom vetoed related laws final yr, as did his two most up-to-date predecessors.
