Democrats take it as an article of faith that the United Farm Workers of America is sacrosanct, even as the labor organization founders.

So Democrats could be forgiven for believing Jerry Brown would sign the bill delivered to him by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez seeking to make it easier for the struggling union to organize farmworkers.

In his first six months back in the corner office, however, Brown has shown signs of becoming an apostate.

That he is less than enthralled with the union became abundantly clear shortly after 11 p.m. Tuesday when Brown announced that he had vetoed the legislation, angering the more than 100 farmworkers, union leaders and sympathetic politicians who massed in the hallway outside his Capitol office.

"What never changes in politics is power," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez told the crowd after he had engaged in an animated hallway phone call with the governor after the veto.

Times are different now.

In his younger days, Brown marched with UFW founder Cesar Chavez, and signed landmark 1975 legislation granting farmworkers the right to collectively bargain. For his part, Chavez placed Brown's name into nomination for president at the 1976 Democratic National Convention in New York.

That was then. Now, Brown is being cheered by farm groups while enduring farm workers' wrath. It began Wednesday when the UFW delivered crushed oranges to his office.

Steinberg's Senate Bill 104 sought to give the UFW the ability to organize workers by using a card-check system, in which organizers persuade a majority of employees to sign union cards and certify a bargaining unit without holding a secret ballot election.

Employers note that Chavez, who died in 1993, fought for the secret ballot in 1976 when he promoted a failed initiative to strengthen the labor law.

"The right to vote is one of our most cherished rights," he wrote. "And yet, as we celebrate our bicentennial, the right to vote is still at issue for the quarter million men, women and children in California who harvest the food we eat."

Now, unions see card-check authority as the holy grail. Barack Obama had promised during the 2008 presidential campaign to push for it once he was elected, but the concept stalled in the face of opposition from business interests.

In the view of some labor leaders, the UFW card-check bill was the single most important labor bill in the nation this year. The pressure to sign the bill was considerable.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Howard Berman, Cesar Chavez's widow, Helen Chavez, former UFW attorney Jerry Cohen and actor Martin Sheen all called.

Then there were the demonstrations, orchestrated by consultant Richie Ross, the UFW's longtime political adviser.

The scenes were familiar: prayers, chants of "Si, se puede," Democratic politicians showing solidarity by wearing buttons with the United Farm Workers logo, and speakers promising justice, if only the governor would sign legislation.

We've seen this before. In 2002, Ross organized similar protests and persuaded then-Gov. Gray Davis to sign legislation to help the UFW by granting the union the right to mandatory mediation with employers who refused to agree to labor contracts.

At the time, Kent Wong, director of the pro-union Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA, told the Los Angeles Times: "This is truly a historic piece of legislation. It's a major breakthrough for the farm workers."

It wasn't. The UFW has invoked the law only three times. The reason, Wong and others say, is that the union cannot use mediation until it gains contracts, and it has been unable to organize workers.

"Employers are much better financed and have tied the union up in knots," Steinberg said.

Even in an era when private unions struggle for members, the UFW is in difficult straits. It reports a mere 5,200 members on annual forms filed with the U.S. Labor Department, though Rodriguez says membership is much higher.

The fight over card check is far from over. Rodriguez and Ross plan to push for new legislation this year.

Brown would not be governor without labor support, and ultimately may bend, if not this year, then next year or the year after.

The governor did spend long hours weighing the decision, which makes sense, given his history, some of which he recalled in the veto message.

The message noted that the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act he signed into law is "recognized as the best labor relations act in the country" 36 years later.

"I am not yet convinced that the far reaching proposals of this bill are justified," Brown wrote.

The operative word in that sentence is "yet." Brown may yet regain the faith. If that were to come to pass, the UFW would have no excuse for failing to expand its ranks.

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