California lawmakers are passing dozens of bills in a flurry of end-of-session activity, including full overtime pay for farmworkers, and an overhaul of how we vote in elections.
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(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli). Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, congratulates Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, after the Assembly approved her bill requiring farmworkers to receive overtime pay after working eight hours.
California Association of Winegrape Growers Director of Government Relations Tyler Blackney: “We hope Gov”.
If signed into law by Brown, California, the largest US agricultural producer, would the first state in the country to require farmers to pay overtime to laborers who work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. 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.
Ahead of Monday’s vote, Assembly members heard from both farmworkers who forfeited a day’s pay to visit offices and press for the bill and from farm industry representatives, including minority farm owners, who warned lawmakers the measure would devastate small-scale growers and diminish work for laborers. “Sometimes, for that reason, you make that economic sacrifice”.
Brown has not said how he will act on the measure, and his record on labor and farmworker issues is mixed.
In addition to people who physically harvest the fields and operate machinery, the bill will cover ranch hands and irrigators.
“We’re asking for equality eventually”. His opponent, former assemblymember and State Senate 3 candidate Mariko Yamada, condemned the action in a statement released today.
The Federation’s weekly newspaper, AgAlert, claimed that “the higher cost of providing overtime pay – particularly when coupled with scheduled increases in the state minimum wage – would force farmers to reduce employee work hours to control labor costs”.
Cecil said farmers are going to be forced to change how they hire and pay employees and how many employees they have.
Across the country, agricultural workers are required to be paid the minimum wage, but there is no upper limit on how long they work.
The Assembly rejected the proposal in June, when eight Democrats opposed it and another six refused to vote. In what Gonzalez has described as an unprecedented move to revive the bill, she worked around the Legislature’s rules and reinserted the proposal in another bill, angering Republicans who objected to the breach in procedure. It is backed by the United Farm Workers, which Chavez helped found in 1962, more than three decades before his death. “This is bill for the [United Farmworkers Association]”, said Republican Assembly Leader Kristen Olsen in response.
“It is time to have equal overtime protections in all workplaces”, Arambula said. It now goes to Governor Jerry Brown for final approval. “Historically farm workers have been excluded from federal and often local labor law and this is a big shift”.
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The bill now heads to Gov.
