AB 2751: Agricultural labor relations.

Existing law, the Alatorre-Zenovich-Dunlap-Berman Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, grants agricultural employees the right to form and join labor organizations and engage in collective bargaining with respect to wages, terms of employment, and other employment conditions. The act creates the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB).

The act prohibits agricultural employers and labor organizations from engaging in unfair labor practices, as defined, and empowers the ALRB to prevent any person from engaging in those practices.

This bill would require the ALRB to process to final board order, within one year, all decisions concerning make-whole awards, backpay, and other monetary awards to employees, or any board order finding liability for an award, unless the ALRB makes a specified certification to the parties.

Existing law authorizes an agricultural employer or a labor organization certified as the exclusive bargaining agent of a bargaining unit of agricultural employees to file with the board, at specified times, a declaration that the parties have failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement and a request that the board issue an order directing the parties to mandatory mediation and conciliation of their issues. Existing law requires the mediator to file a report with the board that may become a final order of the board, or the board may determine the issues and issue a final order of the board, as specified.

Existing law authorizes either party or the board to file an action to enforce the order of the board in the superior court for the County of Sacramento or in the county where either partys principal place of business is located; however, the law prohibits enforcement of a pending board order unless the court makes specified findings.

This bill would, instead, require immediate implementation of the board order during the pendency of any challenge, appeal, writ of review, or other action seeking to modify or overturn a board order, unless the court makes specified findings. The bill would require at the conclusion of any review proceedings commenced under these provisions in which the boards order is affirmed, and the terms set forth in the boards order are not implemented or effective, the agricultural employer and the labor organization to immediately implement the boards order.

The bill would specify a procedure for either the agricultural employer or labor organization to file a request with the board for referral to mandatory mediation and conciliation if a collective bargaining agreement in a mediators report adopted as a final board order includes a duration provision setting a term for the agreement that has since expired during the course of any review proceedings, or other provisions that have become outdated or otherwise moot as a result of the passage of time during the course of review proceedings.

Existing regulatory law, applicable to all outdoor places of employment, among other things, requires that employees have access to potable water and be encouraged to drink water frequently, that the employer have and maintain one or more areas with shade at all times while employees are present that are either open to the air or provided with ventilation or cooling, and that the employer implement high-heat procedures when the temperature equals or exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit, as specified.

This bill would authorize the requirements described above to be known and cited as the Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez heat illness standard.