The Wonderful Company ranked No. 1 for best work place. Union fight taints that | Opinion

Congratulations to The Wonderful Company for being named No. 1 for best company to work for in 2025 by People magazine. That is a jump from last year’s No. 3 ranking, and was rated ahead of Hilton and Delta Airlines.

If only the $6 billion operation took care of its farmworkers.

The privately owned corporation, based in Los Angeles, has footprints all over the San Joaquin Valley where the bulk of its 175,000 acres of farmland are located. Those fields produce pistachios, almonds, pomegranates and other crops. It is the world’s largest grower of tree nuts and the country’s biggest citrus grower.

Its business empire extends beyond agriculture. The company, controlled by Stewart and Lynda Resnick, also owns Teleflora, the world’s largest flower-delivery company. It owns Fiji, the world’s top premium bottled water. It has also made affordable housing, wellness centers and child care available for workers.

Along the way, the Resnicks got involved in education. The company launched Wonderful College Prep Academy schools in Delano and Lost Hills at a cost of $155 million, operates two year-round preschools and provides scholarships of up to $40,000 to its graduates. (Former Sacramento City Schools Superintendent Jorge Aguilar, also a former Fresno Unified administrator, is superintendent of the Wonderful prep academies).

The Resnicks donated $10 million in 2019 for Fresno State’s new, three-story student union now called the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Student Union. Students approved a $149 fee per semester to help support the $64 million building.

In 2021, the $1 million Wonderful Butterfly Project provided up to $500 for each of the first 2,000 graduates from the Fresno State classes of 2020 and 2021 for completing two days of service with community nonprofits.

The company provides $1 million annually to community organizations like the Marjaree Mason Center, Boys & Girls Clubs and food banks.

“At Wonderful, our calling is clear – to leave people and the plant better than we found them – starting in our own backyard,” the Resnicks explain on their website about corporate social responsibility.

After the January wildfires in Los Angeles, the Wonderful Company pledged $10 million to support wildfire relief efforts, including $1 million to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and $500,000 to the Los Angeles Police Foundation.

Wonderful’s fight with the UFW

Not all the news about the Resnicks and Wonderful is positive. Stewart Resnick filed a successful lawsuit to shut down the California Pistachio Commission in 2007, saying the commission’s marketing programs were “totally ineffective.”

A majority of pistachio growers supported the continuation of the commission, but Resnick successfully argued that support must come from those representing the majority of the crop.

Some farmers are not happy that the Wonderful Company has a major stake in the Kern Water Bank, or that the company has continued to buy up land and its water.

The United Farm Workers won the right to represent 640 workers at Wonderful Nurseries in March 2024 after the Agricultural Labor Relations Board validated 327 authorization cards. However, Wonderful and 148 workers allege the union tricked workers into supporting the UFW in exchange for $600 in COVID-19 federal relief payments.

The union published a video in July alleging more than 100 nursery workers were paid $100 in cash for participating in an anti-union protest on March 27, 2024. Wonderful announced in February it will shut down its grape vine production but keep tree operations, leaving hundreds of workers unemployed.

The Wonderful Company attributed the shutdown to a bad economic environment and not its fight with the union.

The union alleges the company is controlling its workers to stave off unionization efforts.

“(It) really shows how manipulated these workers are, how vulnerable they are to coercion, UFW national vice president Elizabeth Strater told Fresno Bee reporter Melissa Montalvo.

UFW President Teresa Romero, in a statement to The Bee, said, “If Wonderful really cared about its workers and the communities they live in, it would respect their right to unionize.”

Trying to sabotage workers from forming a union is not a move associated with a Great-Place-to-Work company.

“Our people do the hard work of feeding our nation. Their children deserve every opportunity,” Lynda Resnick told People magazine. “Wonderful Career Pathways is one of many ways we are committed to ending the cycle of poverty by taking a holistic view and focusing on the social determinants of a healthy society.”

The Wonderful Company should not let its good deeds on education be overshadowed by how it treats its farmworkers.

An earlier version of this editorial misstated the date Wonderful announced it will shut down its grape vine production. The announcement was made prior to the anti-union protest in March. The lawsuit against the California Pistachio Commission was filed in 2007, not in 2017 as originally written. Also, the amount of scholarships provided by the company has been corrected to $40,000.

This story was originally published August 31, 2025 at 5:30 AM.