Reyes, the tomato picker, said the farmers’ claims are political heat aimed at trying to prevent Brown from giving him the same pay protections that the rest of California’s hourly workers have.
Advertisement
Currently, if these employees work a 10-hour day they start accruing overtime pay after those 10 hours instead of eight like most employees in California.
Starting in 2019, the new law would gradually expand overtime pay for California’s estimated 825,000 farm workers.
“The fruit doesn’t stop ripening because it’s five o’clock”, Cecil said.
A new bill referred to as AB 1066, would impact the laws that farm workers now face regarding overtime hours. “In comparison, during the winter months, during the slower time, there isn’t work available for them so their daily hours are reduced”.
“We want to pay our workers the best we can and promote them within the company and this puts another mandated restriction on what our workers can work”, he says. It is backed by the United Farm Workers, which Chavez helped found in 1962, more than three decades before his death. They said the added costs will require employers to cut workers’ hours, ultimately hurting hundreds of thousands of farmworkers in California.
The bill would further burden growers who are already challenged with increasing minimum wage rates, regulatory compliance costs, paid time off mandates, and health care provisions, Groot said. If signed by the governor, the law would make the Golden State the first to require the agricultural industry to meet the federal labor standards applied to most other industries. When it cleared the Assembly by a 44-32 vote Monday, it moved on to the desk of Gov. The Western Growers also denounced its passage, arguing it will hurt workers and the economy.
Assemblymember Bill Dodd, who now represents the Springs but is running for State Senate District 3 in November, voted no.
The bill’s author, Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, revived the bill and worked around the Legislature’s rules and reinserted the proposal in another bill, angering Republicans who objected to the breach in procedure.
Gonzalo Najera, who drives a tractor on Salinas Valley’s lettuce, carrots and broccoli fields, said some farmers are saying the extra overtime payments could drive them out of the state, but he doesn’t buy the argument.
California lawmakers passed a similar bill in 2010 that would have deleted the exemption of agricultural employees from overtime requirements.
In the end, we believe it is time that as a state – and we hope eventually as a nation – we stop treating farmworkers as a different class of employee.
Advertisement
The Associated Press contributed to this article. On Facebook, visit: Roberto Robledo.
