California farm workers on edge over historic overtime bill

It also requires an employer to pay overtime wages as specified to an employee who works in excess of a workday or workweek, and imposes criminal penalties for the violation of these requirements.

California’s long-struggling farmworkers, who labor in harsh conditions to harvest more than a third of all vegetables grown in the US and two-thirds of our fruits and nuts, are one big step closer to getting the bump in pay they deserve.

Saralyn Delk, the owner of Regulus Farms in Thermal, said if the bill passes, she may have to cut hours for her workers.

Leaders of the Salinas Valley agriculture industry responded firmly Tuesday in opposition to a state bill that rewrites the overtime pay policy for farmworkers in California.

Detractors of the bill say the legislation will ultimately be bad for farm workers, because it will result in more farm workers working fewer hours. He earns about $33,000 a year and said he has worked seven days a week since March this year.

The measure would apply to employees who have been at a company for more than a year, and would also protect a worker’s employer-paid health insurance while they are on leave. AB 1066 additionally authorizes the Governor to temporarily suspend a scheduled phase-in of overtime at any time until full implementation of phase-in overtime requirements or January 1, 2022, whichever comes first, if the Governor suspends minimum wage increases based on economic conditions.

“No one has the data on exactly who works how many hours”, Davis says.

Republicans say the rules will harm businesses.

“That’s a significant help for people that work in the fields”, he said.

“I’m supportive of what it’s trying to do, but I want to ensure that changes are balanced and crafted in a way that minimizes unintended negative consequences”, he said. “We’ll have better benefits that way”, he said through a translator.

“The whole world eats the food provided by California farm workers, yet we don’t guarantee fair overtime pay for the backbreaking manual labor they put in to keep us fed”, said Gonzalez. The law will be phased-in over four years, starting in 2019. This “sleight of hand”, as Groot called it, is called “gut and amend”.

Gonzalez waged a social media campaign to pressure her Democratic colleagues to back AB1066; agreed to compromises to win votes, including giving small farms an extra three years to pay more overtime; and led a squad of Democratic allies in a 24-hour fast paying homage to the weekslong fast that legendary farmworker activist Cesar Chavez staged when the “Salad Bowl” strike of 1970 initially failed.

But that’s not how everyone feels-The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) in California, for example, said the bill would have “devastating impacts”. Additional coauthors are Assembly members David Chiu (D-San Francisco), Kansen Chu (D-Milpitas), Mike Gatto (D-Burbank), Patty Lopez (D-San Fernando), Jose Medina (D-Riverside), Mark Stone (D-Santa Cruz), Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), and Shirley Weber (D-San Diego); and Senators Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), Marty Block (D-San Diego), Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), and Bill Monning (D-Monterey).

The Associated Press contributed to this story.