Amazingly, the California legislature has passed SB 104, the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act, which would, essentially, permit farm workers to organize via a majority sign-up and registration cards rather than a secret ballot election. In other words, it's the Employee Free Choice Act for California farm workers. But Gov. Brown apparently hasn't decided if he's going to sign the bill yet. If he's worried that the bill would outlaw the secret ballot, he doesn't have to -- like the Employee Free Choice Act, which has been wrongly accused of "outlawing the secret ballot," SB 104 would give California farm workers a choice between a secret ballot election at a polling place and a card check election, the latter of which could help workers avoid intimidation by their bosses. If you're a California resident, American Rights at Work helps you tell Gov. Brown to sign the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act.

Meanwhile, the Central New York Oil and Gas Company plans to install a gas pipeline through Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains, garroting some 600 fairly pristine acres in the process. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has to approve the project first, and they're taking comments on whether they should produce an Environmental Impact Statement on the project. I've been hearing that the FERC doesn't particularly want to produce said study, and perhaps they don't, but it doesn't matter what they want to do; it matters what we want them to do. Central's MARC I project would put in a lot of gas wells along the pipeline, many of these near coal mining sites both active and inactive; sound like a pretty big air and water pollution risk to you? Sound like something making a big deal about? So Earth Justice helps you demand a thorough environmental study of Central's project. Really, what are they afraid of?