A farmer's feud with workers union leads to high-stakes Supreme Court showdown about property rights

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1. More from the Washington Post

A pending Supreme Court case that pits union rights against property rights began on a cold October morning in 2015 on a California strawberry plant farm near the Oregon border.

Mike Fahner, the third-generation owner of Cedar Point Nursery in Dorris, recalls a “frightening” scene: “We had strangers on bullhorns marching up and down through our buildings.” He cites a video of flag-waving union demonstrators he describes as an “invasion” and blames California’s law that gives organizers the right to access a grower’s property to make their case to farmworkers.

Union officials were blunt in response. “They’re absolutely lying about it being a trespass,” United Farm Workers of America (UFW) general counsel Mario Martínez said. “What they’re upset about is that their own workers went on strike. . . . The video they’ve circulated? Those are all Cedar Point workers. They’re not union organizers.”

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Fahner acknowledges he would be in the lawsuit no matter how polite or ill-mannered union organizers might be. “The right-to-access law, whether provided to unions or anybody to somebody’s personal private property, is wrong,” he said. “And it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the nation.”