United Farm Workers, the union that represents farmworkers at Porpiglia Farms in Ulster County, has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state Public Employee Relations Board against the farm which accuses its owners, Anthony and Joseph Porpiglia, of disrupting a union meeting on Monday.

The meeting took place in the living quarters of six farmworkers, which are on the farm’s premises, UFW Secretary-Treasurer Armando Elenes said. Only three farmworkers were present at the time. The union alleges that Anthony and Joseph Porpiglia, alongside two other men, interrupted the meeting asking who had invited the organizer, Isabel Egas, and demanding that she leave, Elenes said...

Monday’s incident was not the first time that the Porpiglias have appeared when a union organizer was present to speak with farmworkers, according to Elenes. When Egas visits the farm, the farm owners demand she identify herself, which Elenes believes is an attempt to intimidate her and the workers. He said it’s been happening “a lot.”

After Monday’s incident, the union said it had communicated with the farmers’ attorneys to ask them to stop what it described as “intimidation tactics.”...

Anthony Porpiglia called UFW’s statement “demonstrably false,” and in a cease-and-desist letter from his attorneys that he shared with the Times Union on Thursday, he demanded that the union retract its “defamatory statements” and cease from further publication of such statements.

“We have continued to engage with the union in good faith, and we always allow workers to receive invited guests in their housing,” Porpiglia said in an email, adding that the farmworkers continue to face “ongoing harassment” from UFW organizers...

According to guidance from the state attorney general, farmworkers have the right to receive visits in their living quarters — including employer-provided housing — from doctors, attorneys, clergy, government workers and labor union representatives when they are not working and without asking permission from their employer or the owners of the labor camp or housing...