FARM BUREAU ENDORSES DAY-OF-REST BILL
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Legislation would provide incentives to retain workers on New York farms
ALBANY — New York Farm Bureau today endorsed new legislation that would mandate a 24-hour day of rest for farmworkers, allowing farm families to provide additional work place protections but still allow employees the ability to have a voice in their employment decisions to retain our experienced and skilled seasonal farm workers.
“While our workers have existing rights under the federal Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and the federal Agricultural Fair Labor Standards Act —because workers move from state to state federal laws contain many employment provisions for farm workers—this legislation provides even more incentives for our employees to stay on our farms,” said Dean Norton, president of New York Farm Bureau.
“We are in great competition with other states and industries to draw from an ever shrinking work force,” he said. ‘As the census figures have demonstrated, the critical younger demographic that typically provides the bulk of the seasonal and year round farm labor force has been shrinking, and most of the unemployed in the state simply don’t live where we farm”. “The added layer of protection this legislation provides will help us recruit and maintain good employees, especially during the harvest.”
Under the bill, New York farmworkers would get 24 consecutive hours off each week unless they waive that right. If workers are idled by bad weather or crop conditions, that would be applied to the day-of-rest requirement, so that local New Yorkers could still be assured that local produce would be picked and cows will be milked and food provided to the grocery store.
Farmworkers in New York already enjoy average wages of more than $10 per hour, and many workers live in free housing, receive free transportation, free childcare and other perks. (Both housing and transportation conditions are regulated under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration codes, along with New York State’s separate and strict Department of Health Farmworker Housing code, and must be inspected prior to occupancy at the start of the season).
Farm Bureau remains solidly opposed to mandatory overtime payments, collective bargaining, and the addition of smaller farms into the provision of Unemployment Insurance, which would add severe costs to the agricultural community in the midst of a still difficult recession and low prices paid to farmers.
Passage of the day-of-rest bill will also help end an ugly smear campaign by farmworker advocate groups, who have been backed and funded by corporate unions and religious groups with minimal understanding of farming and food in New York.
Ninety nine percent of New York’s farms are family owned, and only California – with its year round agriculture and much larger farms – contains the same level of mandates that our state’s farmers would have to provide under the Omnibus Farm Labor bill.
Farmworkers, when surveyed in an independent study, self-identified the needs of learning English, better access to housing and health care, as important issues that needed to be addressed, along with immigration. Workplace conditions were cited by a mere 3% of farm workers as an issue that concerned them – evidence that our family farms provide good working environments for employees.
“While more paperwork isn’t a great thing for the farmer, the day of rest bill will certainly help address a legitimate concern by these self-appointed advocate groups. Farm workers do need to be included, along with existing manual workers, in New York’s long standing one day of rest in every seven labor law, but this compromise makes sure that the voice of the actual farm worker is not lost,” said Norton.
“Our farm families and our loyal employees will continue to strive every day to put quality, locally-produced food on the tables of all New Yorkers,” Norton said.
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New York Farm Bureau is the statewide lobbying/trade organization that represents thousands of member families. Its members and the public know the organization as "The Voice of New York Agriculture." New York Farm Bureau is dedicated to solving the economic and public policy issues challenging the agricultural community.
