The California Assembly on Monday sent Gov.
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Brown, a Democrat, has not said whether he will sign the law that would be the first of its kind for the United States.
Monday’s vote represents a dramatic turnaround from June when a similar bill, AB 2757 (also written by Gonzales), failed to clear the Assembly floor by three votes.
Assembly Bill 1066, authored by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), passed on a mostly party-line, 44-32 vote. 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. “This is going to hurt employees and their families the most”.
“There may be situations where people may believe that they will lose something in terms of economics, but my father taught me that it was more than about the money, it was about who he was as a man and it was about him being respected by everyone else like everyone else”, said Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, whose father was a sharecropper. So did Republican Frank Bigelow, whose district includes the central Sierra Nevada.
The arguments were strong from a farm industry seeking to maintain an 80-year-old exemption from labor laws that created the eight-hour work day for American workers. You are less than other workers.
If signed into law by Gov. Opponents had argued that the law would hurt farm workers, whose median annual income is now only $14,000. Farm fields have long allowed exploitation of powerless laborers, they argued, from slavery through the immigrant laborers for whom Chavez fought. Unlike those in other hourly jobs, if farmers work more than 40 hours a week they are not guaranteed any overtime pay. “Supporters of the legislation claim this is about ‘equality, ‘ but AB 1066 would actually hurt the employees it’s meant to help”. The union repeatedly brought farmworkers to the Capitol and collaborated with lawmakers who launched a 24-hour hunger strike to support the measure. “Today, 78 years later, when farm workers are mainly Latino, this shameful legacy of racism and discrimination still infects our society”, UFW said in a statement.
The bill passed with no floor debate on Tuesday in the Assembly.
“Overjoyed. Overjoyed”, said Ramos, “finally the farm workers will have justice”.
Assemblyman Devon Mathis, R-Visalia, said many workers who are concerned about looming cuts have been silent on the issue “because they are busy back home working”.
But they did not convince Democratic legislators, and they do not convince us, to continue the antiquated system of treating farmworkers as a different class of worker in this state.
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The bill is the culmination of decades of lobbying and pressure by the United Farmworkers Union. It now goes to Governor Jerry Brown for final approval. The Governor, however, has the option to veto the bill.
