SCHUYLERVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — The thousands of people paid to plant corn, pick apples and milk cows in New York often work long days, six days a week — and earn overtime only after 60 hours of labor.
New York took a big step Jan. 28 toward lowering that threshold when a state board voted to recommend that a 40-hour overtime rule for farmworkers be phased in over the next 10 years.
If the recommendation is approved by the state labor commissioner, New York would join California and Washington state in phasing in an overtime threshold common in other industries.
The vote by the three-member wage board capped a series of public hearings this month that heated up debate over compensation for agricultural workers in New York, many from Mexico, Guatemala and other foreign countries.
“We need a better quality of life,” veteran dairy worker Lazaro Alvarez said.
He is among those who say the change is long overdue for an estimated 55,000 agricultural workers in New York.
But the prospect is alarming farmers. They warn the extra costs would wipe out marginal farms, hobble others and actually reduce workers’ earnings if farmers cap hours to manage expenses.
“While the industry overall may survive, many individual farms will not,” Chris Laughton of Farm Credit East, a lender for the agriculture industry in the Northeast, testified this month.
At Welcome Stock Farm near Saratoga Springs, Bill Peck said overtime after 40 hours for the farm’s 18 full-time employees would cost him up to an...
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