There is a false narrative permeating in the politics of this discussion-many would believe agricultural workers receive no overtime pay for their work.
Advertisement
A bill in California would change that. Brown, will phase in requirements to pay farm workers overtime after eight hours of work in a day or 40 hours in a week – the same requirements as mandated in other types of work.
The strike fizzled with no legislative accomplishments under former Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan. Once the bill is delivered to the governor’s desk, he has the opportunity to either sign it into law or veto it.
And will the price of produce in California be affected? Workers who put in more than 12 hours a day would be owed double pay. California, the largest agricultural-producing state, is one of the few states to require premium or overtime pay to agricultural workers who work more than 10 hours in a day or 60 hours a week. FSRN’s Lena Nozizwe reports that could mean pay raises for more than a quarter of a million farm workers around the state.
Supporters invoked fairness, justice and the need to rectify a history rife with labor exploitation.
The bill passed with no floor debate on Tuesday in the Assembly.
The history does in fact go back almost eight decades.
“I challenge Assemblymember Dodd to work a day in the fields with me, so he can experience the realities of this backbreaking work”, said Yamada, who was termed out of the Assembly in 2014 after three terms. “You can not put the Negro and the white man on the same basis and get away with it”.
“There was a special standard set for farming so that we could bring the crop in and be the leader, in California, to not only the world but the nation and that our farmworkers would be taken care of”, said Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield. South Carolina’s Ed Smith remarked, “T$3 he main object of this bill is, by human legislation, to overcome the great gift of God to the South”.
Advertisement
“This is not an attack on those who employ farmworkers”, Thurmond said. “While AB 1066 claims to protect agricultural employees, this short-sighted policy will have the opposite effect, reducing the number of hours available to (and earning potential of) farm workers”. Huge shares of Latino, Asian-American, and Native American workers were also left out.
