A proposal by the state’s farm labor watchdog to go out into fields to tell farmworkers about their rights is running into strong opposition from growers, who fear that the agency is about to mix policing with education.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative land rights group, fired a shot over the bow of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board on Wednesday by filing a broad constitutional challenge to a 40-year-old regulation that gives unions limited access to private property so they can meet with workers.

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William B. Gould IV, chairman of the three-member labor board, said the suit could be “a preemptive strike” against the board’s impending move into educational outreach, as well as an attempt to bring a case before a conservative U.S. Supreme Court that appears willing to rule in favor of private property rights.

The question of union access to private property has largely been settled, said Gould, a Gov. Jerry Brown appointee who is an emeritus law professor at Stanford University and previously chaired the National Labor Relations Board.

“The U.S. and California Supreme Courts have established the principle that individuals other than employees and the employers themselves may have access for the purpose of labor statutes,” Gould said. “This is a well-established concept that goes back well into the previous century.”

Gould said the board’s future education plan would not offer unions a new way to get onto growers’ property. Unions such as the UFW have “all kinds of ways under existing law to get access,” he said.

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“I think that is a legitimate concern, and it’s something we want to make sure is addressed in the final rule,” Gould said.

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Even if the board finalizes its educational access rule, it would face a lack of staff who speak indigenous languages. It also will have to navigate a conundrum, Gould noted: “How will the workers make a request if they don’t know to begin with?”

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative land rights group, fired a shot over the bow of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board on Wednesday by filing a broad constitutional challenge to a 40-year-old regulation that gives unions limited access to private property so they can meet with workers.

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