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A majority of employees at the [Windmill Farms] farm in Sunnyside, Yakima County, voted to unionize last year. But because farmworkers aren’t covered by the National Labor Relations Act, which lays out a legal framework for union recognition, it’s up to individual employers to choose whether to recognize union committees.

Ostrom did not. Windmill Farms, which purchased the company in February, has followed suit, claiming a union is unnecessary...

“It’s entirely basically a voluntary process,” said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a United Farm Workers spokesperson.

Farmworker union committees here and largely across the country have no legal recourse, aside from appealing to their employer and the public, he said.

“Labor law can’t ever be based on employers doing the right thing,” De Loera-Brust said. “Some employers will. Some employers won’t.”...

Windmill Farms CEO Clay Taylor declined to comment on specific terminations but said the company has not fired any employees over union activity. Taylor said company officials have “an excellent relationship” with employees and see “no need” for a union...

Martinez said workers’ efforts to unionize and advocate have been stalled by “anti-union” leadership and supervisors, however, and that many discriminatory Ostrom supervisors and top officials have remained with Windmill Farms.

Paula Nuñez, who’s involved in unionization efforts, said she was fired July 21 after three years working with Ostrom and Windmill Farms. She said she was told she was failing to meet an hourly 50-pound quota for pickers — mirroring the circumstances of two other union advocates, Gloria Solis and Roman Castillo Avila, who were fired despite years of work without complaints...