SALINAS — Fanciful Company Inc. and D’Arrigo Bros Co. of California, located in Salinas, have paid $17,000 in lost wages to a farmworker to resolve a California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) unfair labor practices complaint.
The complaint alleged “that the companies fired the worker in retaliation for reporting his and his co-workers’ concerns about working conditions, which included the fast speed of the cauliflower harvesting machine, lack of cooling breaks during hot weather and incorrect wage payments,” according to a news release April 25.
The settlement, reached in March with the ALRB, also included an offer of reinstatement to the worker, and the companies agreed to respect the right of farmworkers to join together and speak up to seek improvements to working conditions without retaliation. ALRB agents will also go to the worker’s former cauliflower harvesting crew to read a notice to agricultural workers about their rights under the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA). This notice will be posted there for 60 days and mailed to current and former employees of the crew.
The ALRB enforces the ALRA, which states that “it is the policy of the State of California to encourage and protect the right of agricultural employees to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives of in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
The ALRB is headquartered in Sacramento and maintains field offices in Santa Rosa, Salinas, Oxnard, Visalia and Indio. Those wishing to access ALRB services may call any ALRB office including the Salinas Office at 831-769-8031, or a statewide toll-free phone number, 800-449-3699. More information is available at alrb.ca.gov.
