Yet while proponents say that the legislation is a step forward for farm workers – 80 percent of whom are immigrants, and 90 percent of whom are Latino, according to the L.A. Times – opponents say that it could actually harm workers. “I commend Gov. Brown for ensuring strong, sensible safeguards for farmworkers and their families, and I commend the California legislature for their ongoing efforts to protect the most vulnerable workers in their state”. The bill will be phased into effect by 2022.
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“AB 1066 will extend equitable overtime standards to farmworkers for the first time in history”, a press release for the California Labor Federation stated.
The United Farm Workers called the law a victory.
Farm work, marked by crushing workloads during specific periods, has always been exempted from some of the labor standards enacted by the federal government beginning in the 1930s, including overtime pay. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that would require farmers to pay overtime after eight hours per day or 40 hours per week, ending an exemption meant to benefit farmers during the Depression. Other workers get overtime after eight hours a day or 40 hours a week.
It came on the heels of the nation’s largest agricultural labor strike that saw thousands of workers walk off farms in 1970 and picket for farm owners to negotiate fair labor conditions with the UFW, established by Cesar Chavez. He has declined to comment on the overtime legislation all year and declined again Monday through spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman.
The bill, AB1066 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, will give the people who work in California’s farm fields the same overtime rights that other workers were granted under federal law during the Great Depression. Thanks to an incredible coalition of workers, lawmakers, labor, environmentalists and individually committed Californians, we have finally righted a 78-year wrong for farmworkers.
Governor Jerry Brown signed the historic legislation on Monday. “The box stores, grocery chains and restaurant companies that buy fresh produce can and will purchase from growers in other states and countries to keep prices down”.
Interestingly enough, in 1976, Gov.
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Brown, a Democrat, cited imperatives of fiscal restraint and viable revenue streams in blocking the bipartisan bill, which would have added tampons, sanitary napkins and other menstrual products to a list of necessities such as food and prescription medicines that are exempt from sales tax. “They will see themselves as another part of the state’s economy”.
