It’s up to Gov Jerry Brown to decide if California farmworkers will be paid overtime for working more than eight hours in a day. Only weeks after defeating an overtime bill, the state Assembly passed, 44-32, a bill calling for a four-year phase-in of overtime rules beginning in 2019 and resulting in overtime pay beginning in 2022, says the Los Angeles Times.
Backers of the bill said farmworkers deserved the same protections as employees in other businesses. “A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” said Assemblyman Tony Thurmond. The United Farm Workers of America union backed the measure. The Los Angeles Times quoted its president, Arturo Rodriguez, as saying, “These are the men and women who every day ensure that we have fruit, vegetables and wine on our tables.”
Opponents said the bill, if enacted, would backfire on farmworkers by saddling their employers with higher costs. Growers will limit hours or hire enough people so they don’t need to pay overtime, said foes. The Western Growers Association said the bill was “short-sighted policy,” reported the Los Angeles Times, because it puts California at a disadvantage in competing with growers in other states and other nations.
“The issue of farmworker overtime festered in recent weeks into one of the most contentious at the end of a two-year session that has been marked by major internal Democratic strife, with rifts growing between those members aligned with business interests and those allied with labor,” said the Los Angeles Times.