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August 4, 2010
Farm advocates hail bill’s defeat
By LYDIA WHEELER
The latest version of a bill that would have forced farmers to pay their
workers overtime and unemployment benefits was narrowly defeated in the
State Senate Tuesday night.
The Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act, which was first introduced last
winter, was voted down for the second time in a vote of 31-28.
Farm lobbyists called the defeat a big victory for the struggling
agriculture industry.
"If it had passed, it would have cost us $200 million per year in
unfunded mandates," said Peter Gregg, a spokesman for the New York Farm
Bureau.
The bill would have required employers of farm laborers to give their
workers at least 24 consecutive hours of rest each week and would have
required farm owners to pay workers time-and-a-half after the first 10
hours of work in a day. The bill also would have made the provisions of
the unemployment insurance law applicable to farm workers, according to
the Senate's website.
"So for example, if we had workers come to our farm for four to six
weeks in the fall, we would have had to pay unemployment insurance on
them for the entire year, and then there's mandatory overtime. We're
already paying our workers upwards of $15 per hour, and they are trying
to make us pay them more at a time when most farm workers are making
more than the farmers themselves, especially in the dairy industry."
Gregg said.
If Larry Bailey had to pay his employees more, he said, it would only
push him deeper into the red.
Bailey, a co-owner of Walker Farms LLC, a dairy farm in Fort Ann, said
his production costs are already higher than his revenues.
"Our cost to produce is $17.32 per 100 pounds of milk produced; that's
our out-of-pocket expense. Our average pay per that 100 pounds is
$15.87," he said.
Bailey said the 17 employees at Walker Farms are paid well over minimum
wage, though he would not disclose the rate. He said if he also had to
pay employee benefits, like those stipulated in the Farmworker Fair
Labor Practices Act, his labor costs would have increased 30 to 35
percent.
"I think it's a great thing it was voted down. At this point in time,
that extends our ability to keep farming without having to increase pay
to workers and the cost of production," he said.
Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury, called the bill onerous and damaging to
farmers.
"To add these rules and regulations - a day off and overtime pay - is
just increasing the costs to the farmers," she said. "Most of the
farmers in this area treat their help very well. Good help is hard to
come by, and once you have it, you work to keep it. These rules and
regulations were really over the top."
Assemblyman Tony Jordan, R-Jackson, said most farm laborers, especially
migrant workers, want to work more than 12 to 15 hours a day.
"One consequence of the bill is it would have caused the farmers to
change their (harvesting) patterns and, actually, it would have harmed
the very people supporters of this bill were trying to help," he said.
Kevin Bowman, owner of Bowman Orchards in Clifton Park, said the four
migrant workers from Jamaica that he's hired through the Federal Migrant
Worker Program want to work at least 12 hours a day.
The real problem with the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act, which was
proposed by Sen. Pedro Espada, D-Bronx, would have come during harvest
time.
"If you have a day of rain, and the guys don't work at all, and then you
have several days that are decent, you basically have a crop that you
would not be able to pick unless you paid the men overtime to do it,"
Bowman said. "It's humorous that Espada pays his people $1.70 an hour
and has corruption charges against him, and yet he wants us to pay our
workers time-and-a-half when they almost make $10 an hour now."
According to a New York Times report, Espada is the subject of two civil
lawsuits brought by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in April. The first
alleged that Espada, his family and his political aides had siphoned
more than $14 million from a network of nonprofit health care clinics he
founded, and the second accused Espada of grossly underpaying janitors
for his Soundview health clinics, some as little as $1.70 an hour, when
the federal minimum wage is $7.25.
Calls made to Espada's press office were not returned to The Post-Star
by deadline.
The New York Farm Bureau said supporters of the bill were backed by
corporate labor unions.
"The whole point was to get farm workers to join their union ranks,
which are shrinking quickly due to the loss of manufacturing factories
in New York," Gregg said. "This is a big victory for us. They could try
again next year, but it's already been voted on twice in the same
legislative session."
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