Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-Queens, represents the 13th Senate District in the New York State Legislature. Lazaro Alvarez Andrade is a dairy worker and member of Central New York Worker Center.
New York’s farmworkers perform grueling work to help us put food on the table, yet, unlike the vast majority of New York’s workers, they are not entitled to overtime pay after working 40 hours a week. Under state law, farmworkers only get it after working 60 hours a week; and there is no sane argument against compensating them extra pay for every hour of overtime they work. Any New York worker who spent a day in a farm workers’ shoes would agree that needs to change.
Overtime pay is a worker protection. Over 85 years ago, the federal government recognized the harmful effects that countless labor hours had on the men and women working in sweatshops and factories. To protect these vulnerable workers, FDR’s New Deal legislation required that all businesses, large and small, pay workers overtime pay after a 40-hour work week. Unfortunately, because of a racist compromise to get Southern segregationists to support the legislation, agricultural jobs held mostly by Black and Brown workers were left unprotected. It is time to right that wrong.
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