Wonderful vows to fight pro-union ‘card check’ law after court rules lawsuit improper
In a win for organized farmworker labor, an appeals court rejected the agriculture industry’s challenge of a 2023 state law making it easier for farmworkers to unionize.
The law allows farmworkers to vote for union representation by signing authorization cards, a process referred to as a “majority support petition” or “card check.” Previously, under the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, farmworkers could only vote via in-person, secret ballot elections conducted on their employer’s property.
The new law — which farmworker advocates say was necessary to combat intimidation of workers — was widely opposed by leading agricultural industry groups, and an initial attempt at the legislation was vetoed by Newsom in 2021.
Since its passing, the law also has been challenged by agricultural groups in state and federal courts.
Meanwhile, the United Farm Workers union has steadily secured wins to represent workers at farms across the state under the new law.
One of those workplaces was Wonderful Nurseries, LLC. In March 2024, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the state agency that oversees farm labor organizing, certified the UFW to represent more than 600 workers at the grapevine nursery.
The company, which is owned by California ag giant The Wonderful Company, sued the ALRB months later in May 2024, contending the new state law was “unconstitutional.”
Wonderful is a multi-billion dollar business owned by Beverly Hills-based entrepreneurs, philanthropists and marketing gurus Stewart and Lynda Resnick. The business is among the largest agricultural companies in the country, and one of the largest employers in the Central Valley with operations in Fresno, Kern, Kings, and Tulare counties. The company is one of the largest single water users and landowners in the nation, according to other published reports.
On Nov. 25, California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal issued an opinion directing the Kern County Superior Court to dismiss the Wonderful Nurseries LLC lawsuit against the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. In their 28-page opinion, the three-judge panel said the company should have waited for the ALRB’s final decision on the unionization certification before it filed the lawsuit.
“Wonderful filed this petition notwithstanding approximately 50 years of unbroken precedent finding an employer may not directly challenge a union certification decision in court except in extraordinarily and exceedingly rare circumstances, which Wonderful does not meaningfully attempt to show are present here,” wrote Justice Rosendo Peña Jr.
Earlier this year, Wonderful Nurseries announced it was laying off hundreds of nursery workers because of hard times in California’s wine and table grape industries, according to a report in the Bakersfield Californian. The company later confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that it was donating the vineyard to UC Davis.
“If Wonderful is shutting down these operations and will not be subject to a mediated CBA (collective bargaining agreement), and is also refusing to bargain with the UFW, it is difficult to see how it will be harmed...,” Peña, Jr. wrote.
A spokesperson for ALRB declined to comment on the ruling.
“The United Farm Workers is pleased that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Appellate District ruled in favor of farmworkers, and that this legal challenge for farmworkers’ rights is behind us,” Elizabeth Strater, UFW’s director of strategic campaigns said in a statement. “Every farmworker in California has rights under the law, and those rights need to be protected.”
But officials for the ag giant vowed to continue fighting the law.
“This decision is about when, not whether, we can continue to challenge the constitutionality of the Card Check law,” Craig Cooper, General Counsel of The Wonderful Company, which owns Wonderful Nurseries, said in a statement.
Cooper said the decision does not explicitly address the merits of Wonderful Nurseries constitutional challenge, which a lower court has already concluded has merit, he said. Also, the decision does not interfere with a separate lawsuit filed in federal court by nearly two dozen workers represented by the Right to Work Foundation, he said.
“And nothing in the ruling prevents the Superior Court from deciding that the Card Check law indeed violates the California and federal constitutions, a decision we look forward to,” he said.
A case management conference is scheduled for Dec. 18 at 08:30 AM with Superior Court Judge Bernard Barmann, Jr.
Wonderful and UFW’s public fight
Since the flagship farmworker union was certified to represent workers at North America’s largest grapevine nursery, the company and the union have been engaged in a public battle.
As soon as the union certification was announced, the company and some of its workers alleged the UFW “tricked” workers into signing the Majority Support Petition cards, which the union has denied.
More than 100 Wonderful workers held an anti-union protest at the ALRB’s headquarters in Visalia shortly after the certification of the union, though the UFW released a video in July alleging workers were paid to attend the protest.
Wonderful and other agricultural groups have sued the state over the law in Kern County Superior Court and the Eastern District of California.
In July 2024, a superior court judge granted a preliminary injunction to halt the UFW’s organizing efforts at Wonderful. But the UFW and ALRB appealed the decision, saying the trial court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter.
Federal judge could dismiss separate case
A federal judge will soon rule on whether to dismiss a separate federal lawsuit against the state over the controversial law.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Kirk E. Sherriff heard oral arguments at the Robert E. Coyle federal courthouse downtown during a 2.5-hour hearing to dismiss a separate federal lawsuit filed by Wonderful Nurseries LLC in December against the ALRB.
The complaint was later consolidated in July with other challenges filed by the Western Growers Association and Fallbrook-based Olive Hill Greenhouses, as well as about a dozen Wonderful nursery workers that opposed the unionization. The union was certified to represent workers at Olive Hills in January 2024 and is currently engaged in the mandatory mediation process, the company’s lawyers said Tuesday.
Sherriff raised questions about the timing of the lawsuit, asking plaintiffs, “Why shouldn’t you have to wait for an order, for a final decision to make a challenge?”
Much of the hearing centered on the mandatory mediation process, which is triggered under state law if an agricultural employer and the union don’t agree upon a labor contract within 90 days from the date of certification.
The state-mandated mandatory mediation process has been fiercely opposed by the state’s agricultural industry in high-profile lawsuits, though the California Supreme Court sided with UFW in 2017.
Lawyers for Wonderful Nurseries and other plaintiffs said Tuesday there was a systemic problem with the MMC (Mandatory Mediation and Conciliation) process.
David Schwarz, an attorney for Wonderful Nurseries LLC, said the fact that employers are “thrust” and “forced” into the MMC process is itself “constitutionally defective.”
If an employer opposes the process on philosophical grounds, they risk facing a bad faith bargaining charge, Schwarz said.
“There’s a fundamental ‘settle or else’ dynamic,” he said.
According to Sebastian Brady, an attorney for the California Department of Justice representing the ALRB, the MMC proceeding between the UFW and Wonderful Nurseries has terminated in light of the fact that Wonderful Nurseries is shutting down. The UFW has not indicated it plans to file anything to reopen the MMC process, he said.
Plus, said Mario Martinez, attorney for the UFW, there are less than 25 employees left at Wonderful Nurseries and a minimum 25 employees are required to trigger the mandatory mediation process.
“Most of the (plaintiff) employees aren’t even working for Wonderful anymore,” Martinez said.
James Young, staff attorney at the Right to Work Foundation representing about a dozen Wonderful nursery workers who oppose the unionization, said UFW still has bargaining rights over the Wonderful bargaining unit and can “change it’s mind tomorrow” to enter the MMC process.
Sherriff said the plaintiffs were “talking about a hypothetical MMC contract that we don’t have.”
Sherriff said that if there are no active MMC proceedings between Wonderful and the UFW, nor are there any likely proceedings based on statements on the record.
“So why is this not moot?” he asked.
Should the case be dismissed, lawyers for Wonderful Nurseries indicated they would file an amended complaint.
“We’re having that conversation right now,” Schwarz said to the court.
It’s not immediately clear when Sherriff will issue a written order on the motion to dismiss the case.
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 10:34 AM with the headline "Wonderful vows to fight pro-union ‘card check’ law after court rules lawsuit improper."
