The law will grant them overtime pay after eight hours in a day’s work and 40 hours in a week, essentially matching how other industries in the state pay workers.
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Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that allows California farm workers to earn overtime pay in the same way non-farm workers do.
California employers now must pay time-and-a half to farmworkers after 10 hours in a day or 60 hours in a week. Other workers get overtime after eight hours a day or 40 hours a week.
But opponents, including many farmers and most Republican lawmakers, said that agricultural work is seasonal, with 60-hour weeks during the harvest and planting seasons, and no work at all during other parts of the year. But Brown has often chosen to release signing statements on particularly thorny bills, in which he explains his reasoning.
Supporters of the bill celebrated as word of Brown’s signature spread, with its author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, heralding what she called a “truly historic day in California”.
The change will be phased in over four years starting in 2019. This number showed a decrease of almost 17 percent compared to 2014, but California remains the leading USA state in cash farm receipts. “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”. “We all depend on their work to feed and care for our families, but far too often they can’t afford to put food on their own dinner tables”.
In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which established the minimum wage, recordkeeping, child labor standards and overtime pay eligibility.
Interestingly enough, in 1976, Gov.
“People who work on farms and in our homes are some of America’s most vulnerable workers”, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez said in a statement. “The implications of this bill are far reaching and the message from Sacramento is clear – mechanize or leave the state”.
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Will AB 1066 become the law that farmworker advocates have always sought or will this hurt the industry?
