The New York Civil Liberties Union will join farmworkers, community and civil rights advocates, and religious leaders in Albany today to urge state lawmakers to enact the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act – legislation that will extend basic labor rights and protections to the state’s farmworkers.
Even though they form the backbone of the state’s $4.7 billion agriculture industry, farmworkers are denied basic labor protections, including rights to overtime pay, to a day off per week, to workers’ compensation if they are injured on the job and to engage in collective bargaining.
“Denying farmworkers basic labor protections is a shameful legacy of the Jim Crow era,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “Farmworkers perform demanding and difficult work, often at poverty-level wages. They put food on our tables, and they deserve basic protections that other workers take for granted. It’s time to end this injustice through these sensible and humane reforms.”
There are an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 farmworkers in the state. About 78 percent are Latino. They work long hours and earn incomes well below the poverty level. According to a study of Hudson Valley farmworkers, nearly one-third worked at least 60 hours a week. The same study found that nearly 60 percent earned barely more than the minimum wage. Often, farmworkers’ pay is so low that they must hold multiple jobs. And yet, many farmworkers still have total incomes below the poverty level.
Farmworkers perform physically demanding jobs that often involve heavy machinery and dangerous chemicals, such as pesticides. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the injury rate for farmworkers is at least 20 percent higher than that for all other workers. Farmworkers are at least seven times more likely than other workers to die due to job-related injuries. An estimated 300,000 to 400,000 children work as farmworkers nationwide.
Among its key provisions, the legislation would:
- Provide farmworkers overtime pay of at least time and one half;
- Allow farmworkers one day of rest each week, which they may decline;
- Require that farmworkers are paid the minimum wage;
- Give farmworkers the right to organize and bargain collectively for the purposes of representing and protecting their interests;
- Ensure that farmworkers’ housing facilities meet basic standards, including structurally safe buildings, clean water, and adequate light, ventilation and sewage facilities;
- Require employers to provide workers’ compensation and disability pay when a farmworker is injured or dies on the job.
When major reforms to workers’ rights were established in the New Deal era, Southern segregationist legislators refused to support these measures unless what was then primarily black labor – farm and domestic workers – were excluded. Based on this deal, the exclusion of farmworkers from labor law protections is still the case today.
In 2010, New York enacted similar legislation that granted fundamental labor rights and protections to the state’s domestic workers. Securing protections for farmworkers is the critical next step.
In the last several years, farming in New York has rapidly grown with the help of increased consumer purchases of New York-made products such as dairy and beef. New York agriculture has also continued to stabilize with the help of federal and state subsidies. Providing basic labor protections would impose minimal costs upon farms, especially in light of the industry’s stability and growth.
