Despotic dominion and union organizing: Law, property, and the historical geography of class struggle in California agribusiness

This paper examines the role of law, particularly law related to private property, in the historical geography of class struggle. At the center of the analysis is the ‘access rule’, written by the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 1975 and struck down by the United States Supreme Court in 2021. Responding to the specific geography of California agribusiness labor relations and the long history of violent repression of workers' organizing rights, the rule allowed union organizers onto growers' property under highly constrained conditions to speak with workers about the merits of unionization. The paper traces the ‘pre-history’ of the rule – the decades of law officers and growers' efforts to deny organizers access to California's rural working class – the working of the rule during its more than forty-five years of existence, and its demise at the hands of the current, conservative supreme court. In doing so, it shows how law not only shapes class composition in particular landscapes but is an essential tool, strategically deployed, by all sides in class struggles. • Reconceptualizes the role of law in class struggle. • Offers a new historical geography of union organizers attempts to access workers they seek to organize. • Show the relevance of struggle over labor relations to contemporary movements for workers' rights. • Critically evaluates the US Supreme Court's fondness for the “despotic dominion” of property.