The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, using death certificates and coroner reports, has recorded 12 heat-related farmworker fatalities since 2004. Three deaths this year are under investigation and may be heat-related.
The dead include pregnant 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, who collapsed in a vineyard near Stockton in May. Nunez and Schwarzenegger attended her funeral.
"Every time there's a death," said Nunez, "I know it gets to him."
After working closely with Schwarzenegger for four years, Nunez said, he's learned "you've got to get to his heart if you want him on something this big."
Nunez's measure, AB 2386, would change the way farmworker union elections have operated since 1975. Instead of having employees vote in secret ballots at the workplace on whether to unionize, the bill would allow workers to take a ballot home.
Nunez says such a method would still give workers a secret ballot while avoiding drawn-out campaigns of intimidation by both growers and the union.
California agricultural interests disagree. Farm owners argue that under the Nunez law, union officials could strong-arm workers in their homes. They call the bill a more convoluted version of one Schwarzenegger vetoed last year that would have allowed a union to bargain on workers' behalf if more than 50% of employees checked a card in support.
"It's simply another form of card check," said Barry J. Bedwell, president of the California Grape & Tree Fruit League, of the Nunez bill.
He accused the United Farm Workers, sponsor of the bill, of trying to change election rules to its advantage.
According to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, since 1998 there have been 19 elections certifying the UFW to bargain for employees and eight elections in which union employees have voted to oust the UFW. Three other decertification elections are unresolved.
UFW spokeswoman Vicki Adame compared the ballot in Nunez's measure to an absentee ballot that allows workers to "take it home and think it over."
Nunez said he does not know whether Schwarzenegger will sign the bill if, as appears likely, it passes the Democrat-controlled Assembly. It passed the Senate on Monday. Schwarzenegger's staff will certainly urge a veto, Nunez said.
The governor has taken no official position on the measure.
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nancy.vogel@latimes.com
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On latimes.com
Farmworker film
View Fabian Nunez's video at latimes.com/california.
