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. The State Senate previously approved the bill in a 21-14 vote.
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Roger Isom, president of the Western Agricultural Processors Association (WAPA) and the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association (CCGGA), said AB 1066 just places additional burdens on the farmer.
The strike fizzled with no legislative accomplishments under former Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan. They also receive overtime on the seventh consecutive day of work and double-time pay after eight hours on that day. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders agreed to spend almost two-thirds of the available money generated by the state’s cap on carbon pollution.
30, 2016, at a field near Mendota, Calif. Farmworkers such as Florentino would be eligible for overtime pay after working eight hours a day or 40 hours a week under a bill headed to the desk of Gov.
Wilson says the call for farm workers to get overtime is in line with the labor movement that has gained traction around the country aiming to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Farmworkers now are not eligible for overtime until they have worked 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week.
State lawmakers have passed legislation that would expand overtime pay for farm workers.
Many California farmworkers were praising historic legislation that brings them closer to receiving the same overtime pay as the rest of the state’s workers who are paid by the hour. “Farm laborers working for hourly wages are a foundation of California’s agriculture industry and our state’s entire economy, and today California has finally shown them some recognition for this”. Opponents had argued that the law would hurt farm workers, whose median annual income is now only $14,000.
“The passage of AB 1066 is disappointing and it places California farmers at a further competitive disadvantage in the global and national marketplace”, said Jim Bogart, president and general counsel of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California.
“We’ve been waiting for this change”, he said.
Isom noted that supporters of AB 1066 are very shortsighted. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, reintroduced her proposal into a separate bill and gained support by adding amendments calling for the overtime laws to be phased in.
One out of eleven farmers in California is an NFIB member, and they are telling us this bill will have a devastating impact on their small, independent farms and farmworkers.
California lawmakers passed a similar bill in 2010 that would have deleted the exemption of agricultural employees from overtime requirements.
His employees said they feel the same way.
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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.
