The National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE) says it has joined a group of New York state farmers in their fight against the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA). NCAE says the law strips American farmers and ranchers of their First Amendment rights.
“There are few ideals more inherently American than that of our First Amendment rights,” Michael Marsh, NCAE president and CEO, says. “Farmers, ranchers, and farmworkers, like all Americans, deserve to enjoy that American right. The FLFLPA strips farmers and farmworkers of their rights in favor of union control. NCAE is proud to join the fight in New York against this outrageous example of overreach.”
NCAE says it has filed a brief amicus curiae supporting New York farmers in the case of New York State Vegetable Growers Association v. James late last week.
In the brief, NCAE says it explained to the Court that, “[h]owever labeled, the end result of the [FLFLPA’s] so-called ‘impasse resolution procedures’ is a total government takeover of the operations of the workplace — hours and breaks, pay and seniority, working conditions, and more — imposed by force of law. It leaves the workers and the employer no flexibility at all because it dictates precisely how long employees must work, how much employees must be paid, and whether employees may engage in constitutionally protected rights of collective action, including whether to replace or oust their bargaining representative. Outside of times of war or other national emergency, the modern concepts of police power have never been stretched so far as to permit an agency of the State of New York to dictate, at the behest of a union, every term of one employer’s labor-management relationship.”
Marsh says unions are successful when pushing farmers and farmworkers who do not wish to participate out. Marsh says this act makes it easier for unions to accomplish that.
“Particularly perniciously, the FLFLPA includes a union security provision, which requires that farmers fire farmworkers who do not wish to cede portions of their hard-earned paycheck to the union,” Marsh says. “Forcing farmers to fire farmworkers simply because they refuse to subsidize union speech is violative of those farmers’ and farmworkers’ First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court has long understood and upheld this concept. We are hopeful that the court in New York will agree.”
