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By Don Jenkins, Capital Press

OLYMPIA — Legislation to give Washington farmworkers collective-bargaining rights stalled, failing to meet a deadline to pass the Senate.  

Senate leaders didn’t bring Senate Bill 6045 up for a vote before time expired Feb. 17 for bills to pass at least one chamber to stay alive for this session. A House version died in the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee. 

Farmworker advocates and union leaders pushed for bargaining rights, while farm groups and individual farmers pushed back, arguing the bill was ill-timed.

“I think the Legislature is beginning to understand the economic realities that exist right now in agriculture,” Worker and Farmer Labor Association policy analyst Scott Dilley said. “To put it bluntly, there’s nothing to bargain over right now.”  

Farmworkers do not have collective-bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Washington state law allows farmworkers to form unions and to strike, but employers are not obligated to recognize and negotiate with farmworker unions.  

SB 6045 would have required farms to bargain. If no agreement was reached, contracts could have been set through binding arbitration. The Public Employment Relations Commission said certifying unions and mediating contract talks would cost $367,648 the first year.  

Despite the cost, the Senate Ways and Committee approved the bill. The Senate Labor and Commerce Committee also endorsed the bill. In both committees, Democrats unanimously supported the bill, while Republicans unanimously opposed it.  

Sen. Rebecca Saldana, D-Seattle, introduced the bill a few days before session began. Farm groups said they were not consulted and argued the bill was flawed, including by not requiring unions to hold secret ballots to win the right to represent workers.  

“A whole host of farmworker protections were lacking,” Washington Farm Bureau director of government relations Breanne Elsey said. “Their voices were not heard.

“When you have a proposal of this magnitude, there has to be discussions beforehand,” she said. “I think the Senate understand that the issues involved here are complicated.”  

Saldana said in an email she was disappointed the bill didn’t pass. Unlike most other workers, farmworkers don’t have collective-bargaining rights and as a result only three agricultural collective-bargaining contracts exist in Washington, she said.  

The discussions the bill sparked made clear that more education is needed so lawmakers understand farmworkers need a path to organize and negotiate, Saldana said. “This legislation was about fairness, dignity in the workplace and addressing a long-standing inequity in the labor law,” she said.  

The Washington State Labor Council and Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a farmworker union, backed the bill. Advocates said giving farmworkers collective-bargaining rights would spare farms from bruising labor disputes.  

Elsey said she anticipates post-session talks about a farmworker labor-relations bill that can gain widespread support. “The agricultural industry has encouraged it,” she said.