In the waning days of the legislative session, Gov. Mills made a decision that outraged farmworkers, many farmers and those across the state who care about basic human rights – she vetoed a bill that would have finally extended the state minimum wage to cover farmworkers, made them employees under state law and protected them from excessive overtime hours.
Workers harvest strawberries in Cape Elizabeth in 2022. Gov. Mills vetoed a bill that would have legally defined farmworkers as “employees,” making them eligible for the state minimum wage of $13.80 per hour. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
Cynthia Phinney is president of the Maine AFL-CIO, and Arthur Phillips is an analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy.
Now, the governor has called for a committee to develop and pass a minimum wage for farmworkers. Given her recent actions, we fear the result will be a further watered-down bill that again relegates farmworkers to second-class status.
The vetoed bill had been discussed at length in several hours-long stakeholder meetings convened by the governor’s administration, and advocates had made major concessions to tailor the bill to what we understood the governor would allow to become law. These concessions included maintaining farmworkers’ prohibition from basic labor laws including the right to collective bargaining, overtime pay or even to discuss one’s working conditions without fear of retaliation.
Despite these attempts at compromise and...
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