Jul. 25—The Maine Legislature has fallen short of overriding a bill Gov. Janet Mills vetoed last week that would have improved wages and working conditions for agricultural workers in Maine.
House members voted 61-61 on a motion to override Tuesday, effectively upholding the veto, killing the bill and further disappointing its supporters. They needed a two-thirds majority of members present to save the bill.
With her veto sustained, Mills signed an executive order Tuesday afternoon establishing a formal stakeholder group to pursue a state minimum wage for farmworkers — an action she promised when she rejected the bill.
The executive order doesn't say whether a state minimum wage for farmworkers would equal the state minimum wage for other workers, which is $13.80 per hour. With few exceptions, farmworkers in Maine are only legally entitled to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, though most generally make more than that amount, bill supporters said.
Mills said last week that she "reluctantly" vetoed L.D. 398 because she and some members of the agricultural community had concerns about unintended consequences and unforeseen costs of the heavily amended bill.
Mills and some farm owners worried that the bill's language granting the state minimum wage to farmworkers might trigger other legal requirements and benefits provided to employees under state and federal labor laws, such as paid time off, unemployment benefits and piecework compensation.
However, the bill's...
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