WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down part of a historic California law inspired by Cesar Chavez and the farm workers union, ruling that agricultural landowners and food processors have a right to keep union organizers off their property.
The justices by a 6-3 vote said the state's "right of access" rule violates property rights protected by the Constitution, which states private property shall not be "taken for public use without just compensation."
Writing for the court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said "the access regulation is not germane to any benefit provided to agricultural employers or any risk posed to the public. ... The access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers' property. It therefore constitutes a per se physical taking," he wrote in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid.
He cited as precedents a pair of California cases. One ruled for the owner of a beachfront home in Ventura who objected to giving the public access to the shore and a second from 2015 that ruled for a grape grower from Fresno who objected to giving his grapes to a government-sponsored cooperative.
"The upshot of this line of precedent is that government-authorized invasions of property -- whether by plane, boat, cable, or beachcomber -- are physical takings requiring just compensation," Roberts said.
The three liberal justices dissented. They described the rule as a regulation, not a taking of property.
The California Legislature in 1975 became the first in the nation to extend collective bargaining rights to farm workers. Months later, a new agricultural labor board adopted the "right of access" rule to allow organizers to seek out those who were working on farmland.
Earlier this year, the state's lawyers said the rule was still needed because farm laborers often worked in remote areas and were not fully aware of their rights to join a union.