Legal challenge seeks to end nearly nine-decade injustice harming organized labor in the state
The United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1776 Keystone State has filed a lawsuit seeking to end an exception in Pennsylvania law that leaves the state’s agricultural workers with fewer rights at work than others – sometimes fewer rights than workers who do nearly identical tasks but aren’t classified as “agricultural laborers.”
This “agricultural laborer” exclusion from the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act is significant in the lives of many Pennsylvanians: Because they are excluded from the PLRA, agricultural workers in Pennsylvania who wish to organize with other workers, join a union, or protest abusive working conditions could be fired for doing so.
The exclusion of agricultural workers from the PLRA violates multiple parts of the Pennsylvania Constitution, including Equal Protection guarantees, the prohibition against special laws, and the prohibition against discrimination based on race and ethnicity, according to the complaint. The suit seeks an order from the Commonwealth Court declaring the exception unconstitutional, and enjoining state officials from enforcing it. This case is co-counseled by FarmSTAND; Willig, Williams & Davidson; and Local 1776.
The PLRA exception at issue is fundamentally harmful to organized labor’s work to win better pay, benefits, and working conditions for food workers in Pennsylvania. It has the effect of reducing bargaining power not just for those classed as agricultural laborers. It also makes things harder for the food workforce as a whole by limiting the collective pressure they can put on their employers.
“Pennsylvania helped build the American labor movement, and we don’t leave workers behind. That’s exactly what this statute does. We’re filing this lawsuit to strike down the agricultural exception because it violates our state constitution, and because no one should have fewer rights simply because of where their work takes place,” said Wendell Young IV, President of UFCW Local 1776 KS. “Winning this case will strengthen the rights of workers across the supply chain. This is necessary, and long overdue.”
The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act, passed in 1937, sought to provide workers with “full freedom of association” by making it unlawful for employers to interfere or retaliate against workers who joined a union or engaged in other concerted activities. The PLRA additionally provided workers with the right to collectively bargain, meaning that employers are required to negotiate in good faith with their workers. Prior to the passage of the PLRA, and the federal equivalent, employers in Pennsylvania had routinely fired workers for unionizing and made workers promise to not unionize as a condition of their employment.
The PLRA’s exception also divides workers nonsensically, and treats workers doing similar jobs in the same supply chain differently. Under the law as it stands, someone employed on a chicken farm to tend to chickens is likely an “agricultural laborer” exempt from the PLRA, while a worker employed to go to the farm, catch the chickens and load them onto a truck, is generally not an “agricultural laborer” and would be protected by the law.
Because of the PLRA’s exclusion of agricultural workers, the food system workers who need to stand up to their employer most don’t have the protection to do so. They are more likely to be immigrants with non-permanent immigration status, do very dangerous tasks at work, be paid less than other food system workers, live in isolated rural places, and speak only Spanish.
“Everywhere, agricultural workers deserve the same workplace protections as all other workers. By carving them out of the PLRA, Pennsylvania is treating its agricultural workers, the backbone of the state’s agricultural industry, as uniquely unworthy of protection,” said Hannah Wolf, FarmSTAND Senior Staff Attorney and counsel for UFCW 1776 in the challenge. “The Pennsylvania Constitution provides a remedy for these singled-out workers. An order declaring the agricultural laborer exclusion unconstitutional would represent a giant step towards a fair food system.”