Farming in 40 hours
Washington’s overtime mandate for agricultural workers begins its phase-in process this month, and this is the first of several stories Good Fruit Grower plans to publish examining the impacts on the fruit industry. This story looks at the workers’ perspectives on overtime mandates in California and Washington, while future stories will include guidance from experts on how to remain in compliance with regulations and how growers are adapting their management.
Farm labor has never been lucrative for Artemio Hernandez, a married father of three.
Bouncing around from vineyards and pear orchards in the Central Valley to cherry blocks in the Northwest puts food on his table and barely pays the rent of his Lodi, California, apartment.
But an overtime mandate intended to improve his life instead has made things worse, he said. “It didn’t work.”
For decades, farmworkers have been exempt from a federal law mandating 1.5 times normal wages for hours that exceed 40 per week, but in recent years, a wave of states have passed or are considering laws that remove the exemption. Over the past year or so, Good Fruit Grower has interviewed nearly two dozen West Coast agricultural laborers like Hernandez about how such laws have affected their lives. Though far from a representative sample, interviews included workers who migrate between states and crops, some who work through contractors and some who are longtime, year-round employees. Supervisors were present in some...
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