After recent years of record-high temperatures and raging wildfires, Oregon farmworkers will now be entitled to overtime pay under a bill passed by the state legislature last week.
The legislation states that farmworkers will eventually be entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours of work. If signed by Oregon Governor Kate Brown, as is expected, the law will require a five-year phase-in process. Starting in 2023-2024, the overtime compensation will kick in at 55 hours per week, then 48 hours in 2025-2026, with the 40-hour max beginning in 2027. The Oregon Senate passed the bill in a 17-10 vote.
The increased risk for farmworkers associated with hotter temperatures, tumultuous fire seasons and overall impacts of climate change was top of mind at the hearing, where some of the more than 1,000 people who submitted testimony raised the point that farmworkers are required to work outdoors regardless of the high temperatures, thick smoke and other extreme weather events.
And the work environment for Oregon farmworkers keeps getting more hostile. According to the National Weather Service, 2020 was the hottest year on record in Oregon since the service began in 1940, with July 2020 setting the record for the hottest month ever in Oregon. This year, Governor Brown has already declared the state’s first drought emergency in Klamath County—a month earlier than any drought declaration last year—citing low snowpack and streamflow numbers in prediction for another dry year.
The testimony...
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