Assembly OKs overtime boost for farmworkers

The California Assembly on Monday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a hard-fought expansion of overtime rules for farmworkers, but it remains uncertain whether the Democratic governor will sign off on the measure.

A nearly identical bill fell three votes short of passage on the Assembly floor in May, with 15 Democrats voting against the measure or declining to vote. But on Monday, an amended version of the measure, now contained in Assembly Bill 1066, passed on a 44-32 vote.

Agricultural workers already receive some overtime pay under California law thanks to a 2002 state directive that entitles them to extra wages if they work more than 10 hours in a day or more than 60 hours in a week. AB 1066 would expand that to bring it more in line with other industries, offering time-and-a-half pay for working more than eight hours in a day or 40 in a week and double pay for working more than 12 hours a day.

The pay boosts would kick in incrementally over four years, and the governor could suspend them for a year if the economy falters.

The vote drew fire from farming and other business groups, including Western United Dairymen, based in Modesto.

“This bill will result in the continued loss of dairies throughout the state,” President Frank Mendonsa said. “This is going to hurt employees and their families the most.”

Both of the Assembly members representing Stanislaus County, Republican Kristin Olsen and Democrat Adam Gray, voted against the bill. So did Republican Frank Bigelow, whose district includes the central Sierra Nevada.

Supporters invoked fairness, justice and the need to rectify a history rife with labor exploitation.

“Right now, under current law, we’re telling our farmworkers, ‘You are different than other workers. You are less than other workers. You are less valued and less valuable,’ ” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, whose parents organized Central Valley farmworkers in the movement championed by Cesar Chavez.

They argued the extra compensation for farmworkers would correct historical wrongs, noting that Congress cut out agricultural workers while guaranteeing other workers extra wages via the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. Farm fields have long allowed exploitation of powerless laborers, they argued, from slavery through the immigrant laborers for whom Chavez fought.

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.

The United Farm Workers union, Chavez’s most visible political legacy in California, played a central role in the political struggle around AB 1066. The union repeatedly brought farmworkers to the Capitol and collaborated with lawmakers who launched a 24-hour hunger strike to support the measure.

Flipping the proponents’ argument, critics said the well-intentioned measure would hurt laborers by leading to cuts in their hours and economic hardship for the farms that employ them. Farmworkers are treated differently from other workers, they said, because the nature of their work is different.

“It’s going to devastate the working families of our farming community,” said Assemblyman Devon Mathis, R-Porterville, whose office dubbed the bill “The Farm Worker Poverty Act of 2016.” Mathis said that workers “do not want to see their hours cut, and that is what will happen here if this is to pass.”

Opponents, including agricultural industry representatives, said supporters of the bill fundamentally misunderstand how farm labor works. They argue that agricultural hours vary far more than in other industries, tied to seasonal cycles rather than state hour mandates. Setting a 60-hour-a-week benchmark for more wages makes far more sense given the long hours of harvest season, they said.

“The people in this room that are part of this body that touch agriculture, that have lived it, that have had their hands in the dirt ... they’ve all told you this is a bad bill,” said Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Plumas Lake. “Things are a little bit different in the farming business,” he added, “and if you don’t understand it you shouldn’t be voting on bills or putting things through you don’t fully understand.”

The bill voted on Monday differed slightly from the original version, having been amended to allow smaller farms more time to implement the change. In an olive branch to opponents, this version of the bill would give farms with 25 or fewer employees until 2022 to start to complying, while larger farms would need to start paying more in 2019.

Brown has not said how he will act on the measure, and his record on labor and farmworker issues is mixed. He signed the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act when he was governor from 1975 to 1983 and has frequently mentioned his personal relationship with Cesar Chavez, the late labor leader.

But Brown has often sided with industry interests since returning to office, at times infuriating farmworker advocates. In 2011, the UFW protested Brown when he vetoed a bill that would have made it easier to unionize farmworkers, though Brown later signed a compromise bill.

This story was originally published August 29, 2016 at 7:53 PM with the headline "Assembly OKs overtime boost for farmworkers."