Pro-Grower Appointees Gain Majority on Farm Labor Board

Gov. George Deukmejian today appointed attorney Gregory L. Gonot to a five-year term on the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board, a move that gives pro-grower interests a majority on the board for the first time.

Gonot, 38, is currently senior staff counsel to agency board member John McCarthy. He replaces Jerome Waldie, whose term expired Tuesday. Waldie, a former Democratic congressman from Contra Costa County, has been the sharpest critic of Deukmejian’s attempt to change the way the fractious agency has operated.

Gonot’s appointment requires state Senate confirmation. However, he could serve for up to a year without being confirmed.

Gonot graduated from UC Davis with a bachelor’s degree in 1969 and received a law degree from UC Berkeley in 1972. He worked as a lawyer for the state Department of Water Resources from 1973 to 1975 and then worked for a year at the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm.

He joined the Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 1976 and has worked there the past nine years. His new job will pay $72,456 a year.

The other members of the board are Jorge Carrillo and Patrick Henning, who were appointed by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.; John P. McCarthy, who was appointed by Brown and reappointed by Deukmejian, and Jyrl Ann James-Massengale, the board’s chairwoman who was tapped by Deukmejian.