Despite the fact that Mississippi has not been particularly fertile ground for labor unions seeking new members from new employment sectors, the attention of American farmers, growers, and other food producers will watch an upcoming case before the U.S. Supreme Court with rapt attention.
The case before the high court is styled Cedar Point Nursery and Fowler Packing Company, Inc., versus Victoria Hassid, in her capacity as chair of the California Agricultural Relations Board.
According to the high court, state law in California “forces agricultural businesses to allow labor organizers onto their property three times a day for 120 days each year. The regulation provides no mechanism for compensation (to those farmers and growers).”
California argues in the lower courts that the law is decades old, grants union organizers temporary access to the farms during non-working hours to communicate with farm workers about their rights to unionize.
But attorneys for the two petitioner growers argue that the rule is a “government-authorized physical invasion of private property.” Joshua Thompson, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, was blunter in his assessment when speaking to the Los Angeles Times last week: “The Constitution forbids government from requiring you to allow unwanted strangers onto your property. And union activists are no exception.”
The question before the Supreme Court is whether the uncompensated appropriation of an easement that is limited in time effects a per se physical taking (of their property) under the Fifth Amendment. At issue is also the property owner’s “right to exclude.”
From a broader standpoint, the case will examine what amounts to a special pass granted to organized labor to enter private property against the will of the property owner. Pro-union voices say the case could foster discrimination against organized labor and in the case of California migrant workers could also disproportionately impact these workers who find it difficult to communicate about labor issues other than through face-to-face meetings.
Another reason that this case will gain widespread national attention is that it represents a major decision of the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court after former President Donald Trump’s appointment of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett to succeed the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Trump’s appointment led to a serious discussion of “packing the court” by disgruntled liberals on Capitol Hill. With Democrats now in control of Congress and the White House, the outcome of this case could well spur additional discussions of that rather dubious scheme.
As we have seen in past Mississippi disputes over eminent domain, no group is stronger and more influential regarding property rights cases than the state’s farmers, ranchers, and timber growers.
Mississippi remains a “right to work” state in which some 86,000 of the state’s 1.034 million workers (or only about 8.3 percent of the state’s workforce) is represented by organized labor. That trails the national average as do most “right to work” states.
Nationally the unions have been steadily declining for the last 40 years, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 14.3 million or 10.8 percent of U.S. employees were in unions last year. That is just over half of the 20.1 percent in 1983, when there were 17.7 million employed, waged, and salaried workers in unions.
Like mosquitos in the summertime, organized labor is desperate to find new dues-paying members to support the unions and to maintain their political relevance.
In Mississippi, frequent efforts to unionize Mississippi’s foreign automaking plants have met with substantial setbacks despite providing national headlines for politicians like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders who sought to couch the pro-union organizing efforts as “civil rights” activities.
Rarely is a Supreme Court case brought by
humble farmers, growers and packers at center stage in American
politics. But this case represents a uniquely compelling set of issues
capable of doing just that.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
23 comments:
"the outcome of this case could well spur additional discussions of that rather dubious scheme."
Sid,
As the MSU communications director, I humbly refer you to the Six Pack Speak forum to decipher this comment: 17 you and your "dubious scheme" comment. Nothing dubious about it. DMFT campaigned on replacing Supreme Court Justices with conservative judges. That's one of the major talking points that got him elected. Nothing "dubious" about it. He said what he was going to do, and did it. He didn't "pack the court either". He replaced a deceased judges with another. Packing the courts refers to expanding the number of seats to put more of your people on it. That my fried is "dubious".
Oh, and 17 these labor unions that think they can come on private farm property. Meet the employees at their houses or a community center. Don't come and interrupt a mans workplace. Labor Unions are something else. Glad we are a right to work state. Labor Unions are a source of making someone keep mediocrity & complacency in place.
I think you should read that passage of his again.
The ole tongue in cheek claimed another victim.
If you enter my property 3 times a day for 120 days without permission, there's going to be a problem.
And you're not going to like my solution.
Reading comprehension has a notorious left-wing bias.
Labor unions have their place and represent an important option for workers who need them. But even if workers need them they do not get a pass to trample fundamental legal rights. Union organizers should have no special exceptions to property rights no matter how screwed up working conditions might be. If they are workers themselves that is a different issue, then it would be a matter of free speech. But why should anyone, no matter who, be forced to allow some stranger you did not invite to invade your property to preach to your guests or employees. It should be an easy call.
Labor Unions, of which Mississippi has very damned few, don't 'come on private property' during their initial stages of organizing.
Being a Right To Work state has nothing to do with an organizing campaign. It simply means where a union exists, an employee is not forced to join it.
Disclaimer: I'm definitely anti-union and am proud of our state for being one of the least-organized in the country. I believe Mississippi, also, to be the only state without a Department of Labor, thank God.
Y makes widgets for $1. X makes widgets for 10¢. labor unions are a tick on Y and both ignore X. X destroys the market and Y. And the tick says I can't help it, I'm a tick.
It might surprise you. Union Membership is growing incrementally but it’s growing.
Go down to the coast the best paying jobs in the state are union jobs. Ask anyone who works at the Shipyards.
If the (mostly) illegals don't like the work rules, Biden's open-border works in both directions. Adios espaldas mojadas.
"In Mississippi, frequent efforts to unionize Mississippi’s foreign automaking plants have met with substantial setbacks despite providing national headlines for politicians like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders who sought to couch the pro-union organizing efforts as “civil rights” activities."
This is the 1st time I can ever remember that Sid Salter talked bad about Bennie Thompson.
hmmm...some of you might want to look at how "right to work" States compare in economic development and attracting large corporations.
You might all to look at how some businesses within a "right to work" State that voluntarily adopt union practices fare compared to those who don't.
X = Multinational corporations who employ Chinese Communist slave labor
Union Membership is growing incrementally but it’s growing.
Link?
... some of you might want to look at how "right to work" States compare in economic development and attracting large corporations.
Yeah, things are going pretty shitty in Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia and Georgia right now. If you were trying to make a point, you didn't make it.
Bloomberg: Union Membership on the Decline
Unions.....a corrupt organization that protects drunks and drugheads, who consistently turn out poor overpriced products.
"It might surprise you. Union Membership is growing incrementally but it’s growing."
It would indeed surprise me, since it's bullshit. Last I looked, something like 2.3% of Mississippi manufacturing jobs are unionized.
3:10; When you have time, please elaborate. Are you actually suggesting that states that are NOT 'right to work' are attracting industrial prospects due to that fact? If you are, you need to sit this one out. No prospect selects a location based on the prospect of union organization or union interference or the existence of a union.
Just google it for a link.....
The scope and depth of capitalist fundamentalist indoctrination never fails to astonish.
To deify "the market" so much that the actual human beings who insist on getting a decent living from it are "ticks"?
That's some serious Josef Goebbels stuff, there.
Not to worry.
I doubt Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, and others from that part of Central America are interested about joining any "USA" labor union.
At the same time, I keep hearing stories about illegal Mexican immigrants that are now tying to get out of the USA, and back to Mexico. I don't know if that's true, but if so ... it's funny as hell !
" That's some serious Josef Goebbels stuff, there."
Nope 4:14.
That sounds more like Horace Greeley than Josef Goebbels.
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