On Tuesday, United Farm Workers leaders sadly wrapped up a 12 day “rotating fast” on the steps of the California state capitol. The union had followed through with its promise to have someone on the capitol steps not eating in 24-hour shifts until Gov. Jerry Brown signs SB104 into law. The bill, which applies only to California farm workers, would have replaced secret ballot union elections with mandatory “card check” and been the first law of its kind in the country. Brown, clearly conflicted, vetoed the bill in dramatic fashion on Tuesday night, just an hour short of the midnight deadline. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry earlier declared all 1.9 million SEIU members would be participating in a “symbolic fast” in solidarity with the UFW while 2500 Netroot Nation bloggers signed on to an on-line “virtual fast” last weekend. Van Johnson, Valerie Jarrett, Senator Al Franken and other progressive luminaries also refrained from eating, at least while having their pictures taken next UFW activists holding paintings of Cesar Chavez. Had it passed, the measure would have allowed the union to use petitions or signature cards as proof of union support with zero oversight or restriction on how those signatures were collected. An organizer could also fill out the entire card for a farm worker except the signature itself, even though it’s safe to assume those who cannot write out the card most likely cannot read it. In another odd bit of street theatrics, UFW activists carried Cesar Chavez’s rocking chair overhead to the capitol in a procession from the Chavez family compound to the capitol steps last week in the hopes that Governor Brown would sign the legislation while sitting in the sacred labor relic. Chavez was frequently photographed in the rocker while on two 24-day non-rotating non-symbolic not at all virtual hunger strikes during his fight for the right of farm workers to, ironically, vote in secret ballot union elections. And it was then first term governor Jerry Brown (often accused of being off his own rocker) who signed secret ballot farm worker bill into law in 1975. Brown went on to remain close friends with Chavez and has since been considered a premier giver and receiver of California labor love. In this week’s veto message Brown wrote he was “not yet convinced” of the need for sweeping change to the bill he signed into law thirty-six years ago but critics contend his only objection was to how the bill might offend business leaders. Brown has often referred to such centrism as “the canoe theory” of governing: paddling a little on the left, a little on the right and rocking in the middle.
