SCOTUS screws farmworkers

From June 23. No matter how this court rules on major social issues, it will remain fundamentally what SCOTUS has almost always been - a tool of the plutocrats.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court published its decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, a case involving an employer challenge to a California regulation that allows union representatives to visit the property of agricultural employers—in narrowly tailored and time-limited circumstances—to carry out efforts to organize the hundreds of thousands of California farmworkers who work in hazardous and low-paying jobs, and who suffer disproportionately high rates of wage and hour violations.

In a disappointing 6-3 decision, the Court’s conservative justices ruled that the California regulation constitutes a per se physical taking of the employer’s property, which in practical terms means union organizers will no longer have the right to access the farms where farmworkers are employed.

The vast majority of farmworkers across the country are not protected by the National Labor Relations Act—the federal law that enshrines the right of workers to join and form unions. - EPI