Windmill Farms Arbitration Case Reaches Washington Supreme Court as Justices Probe Fire-and-Rehire Deal

The Windmill Farms arbitration case reached the Washington Supreme Court on October 22, 2026, when the justices heard argument in United Farm Workers of America v. Greenwood Mushroom Sunnyside IA, LLC, No. 104226-4, on whether six Sunnyside mushroom workers who say they were fired for union organizing must arbitrate their claims under agreements they signed to keep their jobs when the farm changed hands in 2023. The answer will decide whether a Washington employer can use a sale-and-rehire moment to move an entire workforce into private arbitration, and how much pressure at signing it takes to make that Arbitration Agreement unenforceable.

No decision has issued. What happened on Thursday was the first case on the court's 9:00 a.m. calendar, and the one contemporaneous account of the bench, from Law360, describes justices struggling with the grower's position that the trial court correctly sent the workers' wrongful-termination claims to arbitration, and asking whether the change of ownership shortly before the firings bore on the disputed clause at all. That second question is the one to watch, because it goes to formation and procedural fairness rather than to the wording of the agreement.

What is the Windmill Farms arbitration case about?

It is a union-retaliation lawsuit that turned into an arbitration fight. Six workers and the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) sued the operator of the Sunnyside, Washington, mushroom plant, which does business as Windmill Farms, alleging that it surveilled union supporters, used attendance rules and production quotas to punish organizing, and fired workers in retaliation, in violation of Washington's Little Norris-LaGuardia Act. The company answered with a Motion to Compel Arbitration based on agreements the workers had signed when they were rehired.

The facility was previously run as Ostrom Mushroom Farms. In May 2023, Ostrom and its parent agreed to pay $3.4 million under a consent decree with the Washington Attorney General resolving claims that it had pushed out domestic workers in favor of H-2A guest workers; court documents in that case showed it let go about 79% of its domestic workforce, and roughly 170 workers were expected to be eligible for payment. Ostrom admitted no wrongdoing. While that case was pending, in February 2023, the plant was sold to Greenwood Mushroom, an Ontario grower whose mushrooms are sold under the Windmill brand and which is owned by the Canadian private equity firm Instar Asset Management.

The workers' account of the handover is the heart of the appeal. According to the union and to reporting in the Yakima Herald-Republic and NW Labor Press, workers were told they had been fired by Ostrom, then each was handed an envelope containing a job offer from Windmill and told to sign it immediately to keep working. The offer was conditioned on accepting mandatory arbitration of disputes and whatever position was offered, and the union says many rehired workers took lower pay. Windmill has said a union is unnecessary at the plant and argued below that the workers signed binding agreements and that the UFW lacks standing.

What did the Washington Supreme Court hear in UFW v. Greenwood?

The court heard the workers' and union's appeal from the Yakima County Superior Court's order compelling arbitration. The question presented, as both sides' supporters have framed it, is the circumstances under which an employer can force workers into arbitration: specifically, whether agreements presented as a take-it-or-lose-your-job condition of rehire, in the middle of a union campaign, are enforceable against claims that the same employer retaliated against organizing.

The court accepted the case on discretionary review in December 2025, announced by Columbia Legal Services on December 15. That procedural posture matters. In Washington, an order compelling arbitration is generally not appealable as of right, so the justices chose to take up an interlocutory order. A court that grants discretionary review of a Motion to Compel Arbitration ruling usually does so because it sees an issue of statewide importance or a probable error, not to restate settled law.

The workers are represented by Columbia Legal Services and Martinez Aguilasocho Law. Ann Gong of Columbia Legal Services has argued publicly that arbitration favors employers and strips low-wage workers of a jury trial and appellate review, which is why the union has treated the forum question as decisive rather than procedural.

Timeline of the Windmill Farms litigation

Date	Event
2022	Workers at the Sunnyside plant begin organizing with the UFW
February 2023	Ostrom site sold to Greenwood Mushroom (Windmill Farms); workers told they are fired and rehired under new agreements including mandatory arbitration
May 2023	Ostrom agrees to a $3.4 million consent decree with the Washington Attorney General over discrimination against domestic workers
November 28, 2023	Six workers and the UFW sue in Yakima County Superior Court under the Little Norris-LaGuardia Act
June 11, 2024	Judge Jared Boswell sends the six workers' claims to arbitration; the UFW's claims stay in court but cannot proceed until the arbitrations finish
August 2024	Windmill fires more than a dozen additional workers, prompting further protests
December 2024	UFW announces a consumer boycott of Windmill mushrooms
December 2025	Washington Supreme Court grants discretionary review
October 22, 2026	Oral argument in No. 104226-4

Why did the trial court send the mushroom workers' claims to arbitration?

Judge Jared Boswell compelled arbitration of the six workers' claims because each had signed an arbitration agreement with Windmill, and he did not accept, at that stage, that the circumstances of signing made those agreements unenforceable. At the June 2024 hearing, he split the case: the individual workers' grievances went to private arbitration, and the UFW's own lawsuit stayed in Superior Court, since the union never signed anything.

The split was less of a win for the union than it first looked. As the Sunnyside Sun and The Stand later reported, the union's claims were barred from proceeding until all six individual plaintiffs completed arbitration. That kind of derivative stay is common when a non-signatory's claims overlap with arbitrable ones, but it has a sharp practical consequence in an organizing dispute: the only party that can seek workforce-wide relief waits, possibly for years, while the individual cases run in a private forum whose awards may never be public.

That sequencing is part of why the appeal is not only about six people. If the high court reverses, the case returns to open court as a whole. If it affirms, the union's ability to litigate an organizing campaign depends on how quickly individual arbitrations conclude.

Can an employer fire workers and rehire them on condition they sign an arbitration agreement?

As a general rule, yes: an employer may make arbitration a condition of employment, including new employment after a sale, and the Federal Arbitration Act requires courts to enforce those agreements like any other contract. But the agreement is still subject to ordinary contract defenses, and the workers' case is that the way these agreements were obtained, with no time to read or decide, under threat of losing a job they already held, during an organizing drive, makes them unenforceable here.

That is the distinction the justices appeared to be probing when they asked about the ownership change. A brand-new hire presented with an arbitration agreement can walk away before starting. A worker told on the shop floor that the job is gone unless a document is signed now has a different choice, even if the legal form of the transaction, termination by the seller and new employment by the buyer, is the same. If the court treats the sale as legally irrelevant and the rehire as functionally a continuation of employment, the pressure argument gets stronger. If it treats the rehire as a fresh offer to new hires, the employer's position gets stronger.

Is an arbitration agreement unconscionable in Washington if workers had to sign immediately?

It can be. Washington is one of the more receptive forums in the country for this argument, because under Adler v. Fred Lind Manor, 153 Wn.2d 331 (2004), either Procedural Unconscionability or Substantive Unconscionability alone is enough to void a contract or term. California and most other states require both, on a sliding scale. A rushed, no-negotiation signing in an unequal bargaining relationship is the classic procedural showing, and in Washington that showing can carry the case by itself if it is strong enough.

Procedural unconscionability in Washington looks at the manner in which the contract was entered: whether the party had a reasonable opportunity to understand the terms, whether important terms were hidden in fine print, and whether there was a meaningful choice. A Contract of Adhesion is not automatically unconscionable, and Washington courts have repeatedly enforced standard-form employment arbitration agreements. What the workers must show is more than a form contract: they rely on the immediacy of the demand, the threat of job loss, the union campaign and the rehire on lower terms.

The state high court's own employment arbitration cases show where the lines have been drawn.

Decision	Holding	Relevance to Windmill
Adler v. Fred Lind Manor, 153 Wn.2d 331 (2004)	Fee and 180-day limitations terms substantively unconscionable; procedural claims remanded on disputed facts; either prong alone can void a term	Sets the one-prong rule the workers need
Gandee v. LDL Freedom Enterprises (2013)	Applies Adler; a term is substantively unconscionable if "one-sided or overly harsh"	Shows the court policing terms closely
Hill v. Garda CL Northwest, 179 Wn.2d 47 (2013)	Union-negotiated clause with a 14-day limitations period, back-pay caps and cost splitting held unconscionable; Concepcion read narrowly	Court willing to strike employment arbitration terms despite FAA arguments
Burnett v. Pagliacci Pizza, 196 Wn.2d 38 (2020)	Arbitration policy in a 23-page handbook the employee never had a chance to review was not agreed to, and was unconscionable	Opportunity to review is a live formation issue

The Windmill workers' argument most resembles Burnett, where the employee never had a real chance to review the arbitration policy before starting work. The difference is that the Windmill workers did sign. The open question is whether being told to sign on the spot, to keep a job, is the functional equivalent of never seeing the terms.

Public coverage has not described the substantive terms of the Windmill agreements, such as fee allocation, the provider, discovery limits or the limitations period. If any of those are one-sided, Washington law gives the workers a second, independent route to the same result.

Does the Federal Arbitration Act stop Washington from striking down the agreement?

Not if the court rests its ruling on a defense that applies to contracts generally. Section 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) makes arbitration agreements enforceable "save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." Unconscionability is such a ground. What the FAA forbids, under AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (2011) and later cases, is a state rule that singles out arbitration or applies a general doctrine in a way that disfavors it.

That is the boundary the Washington court will be drafting against. A holding that agreements obtained by an on-the-spot demand under threat of dismissal are procedurally unconscionable, applied as it would be to a non-compete or a release obtained the same way, sits comfortably inside the savings clause. A holding that arbitration agreements imposed during a union campaign are unenforceable as a category would invite an FAA Preemption challenge and possible review in the United States Supreme Court. Washington's own record, including Hill's narrow reading of Concepcion, suggests the court knows where that line is.

The farmworker context also takes one federal argument off the table. Agricultural laborers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152(3), so the federal labor-law framework that produced Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis (2018), which upheld individual arbitration agreements against an NLRA challenge, does not govern these workers' organizing rights. That gap is why Washington's Little Norris-LaGuardia Act carries the substantive claims in the first place.

Why the Little Norris-LaGuardia Act matters to the arbitration question

RCW 49.32 protects workers' freedom from employer "interference, restraint, or coercion" in self-organization and concerted activity, and Washington advocates have long treated it as the main state-law shield for farmworkers left outside the NLRA. The workers' complaint pleads that the firings and the conduct around them violated that statute.

That framing gives the unconscionability argument an unusual edge. The workers are not only saying the arbitration agreements were signed under pressure. They are saying the pressure was part of the same course of conduct the statute prohibits, so that enforcing the agreements would let the alleged interference determine where the interference is adjudicated. A court does not have to accept that theory to rule for the workers, but it explains why the justices focused on the timing of the ownership change relative to the firings.

It also explains the stakes for the union. The Little Norris-LaGuardia Act's value is largely in public, collective enforcement. Individual, confidential arbitrations of six claims are a poor vehicle for a statute aimed at protecting organizing as a group activity.

What could the court decide, and when?

The court has four realistic paths. It can affirm, holding the agreements valid and the claims arbitrable, leaving the union's case stayed. It can reverse outright, holding the agreements procedurally unconscionable as a matter of law on the undisputed facts of how they were signed. It can reverse on formation, holding there was no meaningful assent, along the lines of Burnett. Or it can remand for an evidentiary hearing on the disputed circumstances of signing, as Adler did in 2004.

There is no fixed deadline for a Washington Supreme Court opinion. The court often decides argued cases within several months, and a split court or a significant doctrinal opinion can take longer. Until the opinion issues, the June 2024 order stands, subject to whatever stay is in place.

What the Windmill Farms ruling means for employers, workers' counsel and arbitration practice

For employers and transaction counsel. Asset purchases are a standard moment to roll out a new Arbitration Agreement across an inherited workforce. A ruling for the workers would not ban that practice, but it would make the mechanics matter: time to review, a translated copy where needed, a real opportunity to ask questions, and separation of the arbitration agreement from the job offer itself all reduce the procedural record a challenger can build. Agreements that track Washington's substantive cases, with ordinary limitations periods, employer-paid fees and full remedies, keep the second prong off the table.

For claimants' counsel. A reversal would give Washington plaintiffs a high-court precedent that signing conditions alone can defeat arbitration, which matters most for low-wage and limited-English workforces where the paperwork is presented in bulk. It would also address the derivative-stay problem, which affects any case pairing a non-signatory organization with signatory individuals.

For mass arbitration practice. Employers increasingly weigh whether individual arbitration actually reduces exposure once claimant firms can file hundreds of demands at once. A rule that makes Washington rehire-based agreements easier to attack changes that calculation in both directions: it raises the risk that an inherited workforce's agreements will not hold, and it lowers the incentive for claimant firms to organize Mass Arbitration campaigns in a state where a court action may be available.

For unions and worker organizations. If affirmed, the case confirms that a non-signatory organization can be kept in court but frozen behind its members' arbitrations, making early challenges to the agreements themselves the critical move.

FAQ

What is the Windmill Farms arbitration case?

It is United Farm Workers of America v. Greenwood Mushroom Sunnyside IA, LLC, No. 104226-4, a Washington Supreme Court appeal over whether six Sunnyside mushroom workers who allege they were fired for union organizing must arbitrate their claims under agreements they signed when Windmill Farms took over the plant in February 2023.

When did the Washington Supreme Court hear the case?

The court heard oral argument on Thursday, October 22, 2026, after granting discretionary review in December 2025. No decision has been issued.

Why are the mushroom workers in arbitration?

Yakima County Superior Court Judge Jared Boswell ordered their claims to arbitration on June 11, 2024, based on agreements each worker signed when rehired, and held the UFW's own claims back until those arbitrations finish.

Can a rushed signing make an arbitration agreement unenforceable in Washington?

It can. Under Adler v. Fred Lind Manor (2004), procedural unconscionability alone can void a term in Washington, and a demand to sign immediately or lose a job is the kind of procedural unfairness the doctrine targets, though the court has not yet ruled on these facts.

Does the FAA protect the Windmill agreements?

Only partly. The FAA requires enforcement of arbitration agreements but preserves general contract defenses such as unconscionability, so a Washington ruling based on how these agreements were obtained, applied as it would be to any contract, would not be preempted.

What happens if the workers win?

The order compelling arbitration would be reversed or sent back for a hearing, and the six workers' and the union's Little Norris-LaGuardia Act claims could proceed together in Yakima County Superior Court.