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.”