Toledo-based agricultural union the Farm Labor Organizing Committee filed suit in federal court Wednesday against North Carolina over a state law that severely limits the unions activities.
The 2017 Farm Act, signed by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper in July, includes an amendment that prevents agricultural producers from directly transferring funds to labor unions to pay workers' dues. The amendment also forbids farms from settling lawsuits with improved union contracts.
In a news release, the groups involved with the suit argued the state law is discriminatory — since most farm workers in North Carolina are Latino and work under temporary visa statuses — and is an unconstitutional violation of the workers’ right to participate in a union.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina by a group of civil rights organizations on behalf of FLOC and two farm workers. The groups — which include the American Civil Liberties Union, Southern Poverty Law Center, the North Carolina Justice Center, and the Robert J. Willis law offices — want the court to block implementation of the law through an injunction while the lawsuit proceeds.
The suit lists FLOC as well as Victor Toledo Vences and Valentin Alvarado Hernandez as plaintiffs, with Governor Cooper and Director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of Courts Marion Warren as defendants.
A call to the governor’s office Wednesday was not returned.
Both Mr. Toledo Vences and Mr. Alvarado Hernandez are Mexican nationals on a guest worker visas and are FLOC members.
“Farmworkers provide indispensable labor to North Carolina’s economy. In exchange for their sacrifices and hard work, the legislature has repaid them with suppression of their constitutional rights,” Kristi Graunke, senior SPLC supervising attorney, said in a statement. “They deserve fair compensation, humane working conditions, and the ability to remedy grievances through collective bargaining. This law swings open the door for worker abuse on every farm across the state.”
Opponents to the law say state legislators who pushed the bill are owners of agricultural operations, with the primary sponsor previously subject to a wage theft lawsuit by FLOC-affiliated farm workers.
FLOC signed a four-year statewide contract in December, 2016. The Farm Act is not retroactive, meaning it only applies to agreements made after Thursday, but union organizers said the bill will spell doom once their current contracts expire, as they would have to travel across the state to collect union dues at about 700 farms.
“With the continuation of Jim Crow-era laws that aim to stop a now almost entirely Latino workforce from organizing, this is an affront to freedom of association and smacks of racism,” FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez said in a statement. “Companies like Reynolds American should be embarrassed that growers in their supply chains are attacking the very farm workers who make their companies’ wealth.”
Union representatives had unsuccessfully petitioned Governor Cooper, a Democrat, to veto the bill.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at nrosenkrans@theblade.com, 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.
First Published November 15, 2017, 8:12 p.m.
