Strawbridge recommends against going to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board or the State Labor Commission. The Republican appointees have consistently ruled in favor of corporate interests over workers. He suggested working through private attorneys as a safer way to go.
The National Labor Relations Board is also a governmental agency, but it is necessary to work through the NLRB to challenge unlawful terminations involving more than one person. Strawbridge has found that when NLRB investigators check into a case, the workers tell the truth - even in cases where plaintiffs may have felt isolated from other workers. It's important to remember that unlawful termination cases must be filed with the NLRB within 6 months.
Workers often need to put up with injustice because they can't afford not to. Having that job can be more important than being treated fairly. So it's good to understand that in cases of minimum wage violations, workers can sue for the money they should have been paid even after leaving the job. And workers who have already left may sue - up to 3 years after leaving - and win back pay, not only for themselves, but for the other workers who remain on that job.
Don't be snowed by the boss who says, "Ya can't prove it - there's no records ha, ha." In cases like this, the employee has the last laugh. If employers haven't kept records, the record becomes, under law, the employees' own records. So workers should keep records of their hours.
These are basic rights whether the worker is union, non-union, documented, or undocumented. Unionized workers have many, many more rights, depending on the contracts they win. But workers without unions do have basic rights. And Strawbridge urged people not to wait around for the union to reach farther north. Start meeting with other workers socially, get to know each other and each others' families, talk about the job. This is very important for solidarity now, and as a healthy base upon which to build a union.later. Building slowly, steadily, socially, will create unbreakable bonds between the workers.
Sexual harassment laws have been late in coming - and still the importance of a harassment-free work place is not widely appreciated by men on the site. Women have a right to work without being touched, hearing derogatory remarks, or having to put up with exploitive pictures. If male workers are dismissive of the complaints women employees have about sexual harassment, those men are being flunkies for the boss.
There are limited resources for people here, who work in the "second economy" - doing the hard but underpaid work. There are places to call however. Redwood Legal Assistance, 462-1471 in Ukiah or 964-8426 on the coast, can refer workers to help. Most of this assistance is still in Santa Rosa through the California Rural Assistance League, the United Farm Workers, or Strawbridge's law firm. Strawbridge does not take money from the workers themselves.
Strawbridge thanked the United Farm Worker unionists who came up to the Alliance meeting from Sonoma County. He said, "The UFW is the only union in the whole country - the only - that is totally honest."
The Alliance for Human Rights (Alianza para los Derechos Humanos) can be reached at 468-8313.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited