Farm workers in New York now have the right to pay overtime and unionize. However, the full implementation of a state law guaranteeing new protection in the workplace is meeting renewed opposition from farm owners fearful of increased labor costs.
The law went into effect January 1, but a state judge ordered two farm groups to stop enforcing some of its provisions as a legal challenge emerges.
The passage of the law last year was the culmination of decades of political struggle in the state to grant labor rights to tens of thousands of farm workers who were not guaranteed the same protection as other workers under state law. The measure has already led to a push to organize farm workers in the state.
The New York State Vegetable Growers Association and Northeast Dairy Producers Association’s lawsuit comes at a time of mounting economic uncertainty for farmers plagued by persistently low commodity prices and trade uncertainties. Many farms in the state say the law does not recognize the economic headwinds they face and puts them at a competitive disadvantage. However, proponents of farm workers say the law is a hard-won victory for a workforce who does tedious and often dangerous work and who have historically been excluded from basic protection in the workplace.
The bill was a compromise between employee representatives, lawmakers, and an industrial coalition led by the New York Farm Bureau. The lawyers had been banding together since at least the 1980s to campaign for farm workers to be given the same protection as other classes of workers under state law. The state’s Farm Bureau continually struggled against such changes and had the advantage of greater political clout than the dispersed, non-unionized workers.
Then, in March, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that paved the way for farm workers to unionize. This victory, coupled with a democratic majority in the Senate, enabled the passage of laws.
The law gave farm workers in only a handful of other states the rights of farm workers in New York. New York’s example could serve as a blueprint for farm workers in other states.
“New York law and other pending cases in states are certainly important in enhancing farm workers’ rights,” said Rebecca Smith, director of labor structures at the National Employment Law Center. “It has been a long process to cover them and it will continue to be highly competitive across the country.”
A population at risk
New York law allows farm workers to organize, work overtime after 60 hours a week, and rest 24 hours in a row every seven calendar days.
A compromise in the late phase, in which the passage was shortened, raised the threshold for overtime from 40 hours to 60 hours. In addition, farmers could count 24 consecutive hours of rest due to weather or harvesting conditions as the required weekly day off. banned work breaks and lockouts; and set up a three-person wages board to assess overtime pay issues in 2020.
Only in four other states – California, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Maryland – farm workers have to pay overtime under certain conditions. Stricter state law is being introduced in California and a lawsuit is being held in Washington state.
25 states expressly exclude agricultural or farm workers from their general labor laws. Six of the 25 states with exclusions have specific labor relations laws for farm workers that provide for collective bargaining. The National Labor Relations Act excludes farm workers from federal law cover – a compromise to get the support of the Southern Democrats when the law was passed in 1935 – and many state laws were written to reflect federal law.
Richard Witt, Executive Director of the Department for Rural Areas and Migrants, launched the “Justice for Farmworkers” campaign in New York. He said several unions are trying to organize farm workers in New York and advocates are working to develop materials and programs to support union action.
After the law was passed, a labor coalition that included SEIU Local 32BJ, the Workers’ Center in central New York, and the Worker Justice Center in New York came against Chobani, the largest state dairy producer. The unions put pressure on the company to support organizational rights in the dairy industry by working with farms that support the new protection.
Targeting companies buying agricultural products has long been a strategy used by unions to pressure farmers to provide workers with overtime wages and other safeguards. Farm workers are a vulnerable population with high numbers of immigrants, proponents say, and they often do not understand their rights in the workplace. That makes it harder to turn them into union organizations. Nationally only about 1% of farm workers are unionized.
“There is a real history of worker exploitation, and our economy is based on that exploitation,” said Witt. “At the same time, agriculture is proud and it is difficult to reconcile these two situations. It took a long time to educate people and build political capital. “
Farmers adapt or fight
The State Farm Bureau estimates that overtime will add 17%, or nearly $ 300 million, to the cost of New York farmers. The state had around 33,400 farms with a total of 55,000 employees in 2017, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The number of farms and total area has decreased since 2007, but income increased by more than 20%.
Farmers campaigned against the new law, and the New York State Vegetables Growers Association and Northeast Dairy Producers Association filed lawsuits just before it went into effect. The lawsuit argues that the definition of a farm laborer’s law could include supervisors, which would be contrary to federal law.
The groups also say the law creates an “impractical catch 22” because it obliges farm owners not to interfere with a manager’s ability to communicate with other workers about union rights, while owners must instruct managers to do so not to interfere in union activities. They also argue that the ban on strikes runs counter to a provision of New York Labor Law that prohibits employers from preventing such activity.
The groups questioned the extent of another legal exception: members of an owner family who work on the farm are exempt.
“By providing clarity to New York farms, we can protect our management teams while ensuring that family members and others who work on our farms are treated fairly,” said Jon Greenwood, chairman of the Northeast Dairy Producers Association and co-owner of a Canton dairy farm , NY said in a statement.
The judge’s injunction stopped enforcement on superiors and members of owner families, but allowed the law to go into effect for the vast majority of farm workers. The preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for January 24th.
“They argued that if the provisions are unclear, all of the law should be struck down,” said Lisa Zucker, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The legislature has spoken clearly; The governor signed the law. We won the lawsuit last year. The right to collective bargaining is a fundamental right. An injustice for 80 years has been corrected. ”
Zucker advocated the passage of the law known as the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act. Her NYCLU colleague, Erin Beth Harrist, represented workers in the state Supreme Court in the case that preceded the passage of the law.
“Deficiencies” persist in the legislation
Although the State Farm Bureau has worked to get the bill passed, it believes its “shortcomings” are hindering farmers, said Steve Ammerman, the group’s spokesman. The group disagrees with the requirement that wages be paid on the seventh consecutive working day based on overtime if a farm worker waives his or her right to a day of rest. It is also against the creation of a wages board.
Farmers in other states who don’t have to pay overtime have a competitive advantage that could harm the industry in the state, Ammerman said, noting that the law is also a compliance headache for farm operators.
“We were in education mode. This is a complicated new set of rules, ”said Ammerman. “There’s an enormous learning curve associated with all of this.”
Kim Skellie, an Ontario County, NY dairy farmer, started working on the changes a few months ago. He said the cost of his 28 full-time and 20 part-time employees would rise to between $ 70,000 and $ 80,000 a year. He said he added a new worker and planned for his workers to work overtime to earn up to four hours a week.
On average, he said, workers do 12-hour shifts and work 60 to 72 hours a week, earning between $ 12 and $ 18 an hour. He said he decided to cut annual premiums as doing so created complications by law. Employees must receive one and a half overtime pay that includes bonuses. He said this was an accounting problem that he wanted to avoid.
Skellie said he feared union formation but allowed workers to use a conference room two hours a day to discuss the new law.
“It would be a difficult situation in any business,” said Skellie. “You have to maintain a certain level of profitability.”
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