TOLEDO BLADE January 27, 2007
Migrants threaten to sue over pay
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee said it will organize politically and work with the Ohio AFL-CIO and church leaders to fight what it characterizes as a discriminatory policy affecting as many as 5,000 short-term, piece-rate crop harvesters, about half of whom are illegal.
"We are not going to keep quiet this time," said Lupe Williams, a Spanish language and Hispanic culture lecturer at Ohio State University.
Just before the legislative session ended in December, the General Assembly, solely with Republican votes, passed legislation to implement the new minimum-wage constitutional amendment approved by 57 percent of voters on Nov. 7. The amendment raised Ohio's minimum wage from the federal level of $5.15 to $6.85 this year and set the stage for annual cost-of-living adjustments thereafter. In defining "employee" as affected by the law, the General Assembly exempted home health-care, amusement park, fishing industry, and some agricultural workers from the hike.
The bill was signed by Republican Gov. Bob Taft as his term ended, much to the chagrin of his successor, Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland.
Strickland spokesman Keith Dailey said the governor "feels [the exemptions] undermined the will of the people. He is talking with others who share that viewpoint as he weighs his options."
The issue could be resolved in Washington, where the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House rushed through a bill to raise the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour by 2009. The measure has slowed in the Senate over a dispute over business tax breaks.
Mr. Valasquez said migrant farm workers are covered under the current federal minimum wage law, as well as Michigan's new minimum, currently at $6.95 as part of a multiyear phase-in toward $7.40.
"We are not beggars nor social parasites, and we are not asking for a handout, but rather a fair day's pay for a fair day at work," said Baldemar Velasquez, the farm workers' union president from Toledo. "The new minimum wage does not even reflect a just wage for our occupation, but we are grateful to the citizens of Ohio for giving us a higher safety net."
Mr. Velasquez said unionized farm workers are paid about $6.50 an hour, or the piece rate, which often is higher. The non-union workers have no such protections, he said.
When enacting the exemptions, Republicans cited the Federal Labor Standards Act, which exempted short-term and piece-rate farm workers.
John Wargowski, the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation's director of labor services and policy, said the exemption is consistent with what voters approved, noting that the amendment exempts businesses doing less than $250,000 in business a year.
He said most smaller farms whose temporary workers would be affected by the exemption would not reach the $250,000 threshold. "All we were looking for was some consistency with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act," he said. "These farms still have to operate in the workplace. The law doesn't say they can't pay more."
Sen. Steve Stivers (R., Upper Arlington) said the General Assembly has no intention of changing course. "We didn't pick and choose," he said. "We included the entire Fair Labor Standards Act. The constitutional amendment was written so poorly that if we didn't, all court rulings and Department of Labor rulings on what the minimum wage was and who it applied to would have been thrown out the window."
Mr. Velasquez said the fact that about half of the affected workers are undocumented makes it easier to single them out.
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