The Republican candidate for governor, Congressman Lee Zeldin, appeared Monday with other federal and state officials at a farm in Albany County to urge Democrats in power in state government to reverse a plan to phase in a mandatory 40-hour workweek for farm laborers.
The state’s Farm Laborers Wage Board has already approved a plan to end the 60-hour-per-week overtime threshold for farmworkers and replace it, over the next decade, with a 40-hour workweek. Under the changes, farm owners would have to pay overtime to farmworkers who put in more than 40 hours in a week.
The board meets next on Sept. 6 to finalize the plan.
Farm owners who gathered at the Stanton family’s farm, about a dozen miles from the State Capitol, predict that the new rule would force many farms to go out of business. And they say it also would mean an end to long-held traditions like apple picking, local farmers markets and roadside farm stands.
Peter Ten Eyck is the longtime owner of Indian Ladder Farms, which is now run by his daughter. The 84-year-old says he worries about the future of his apple orchards and other small farms if the changes go through.
“First, you’re going to lose the weakest farms,” said Ten Eyck. “The next thing you’re going to lose is the next generation of farmers. People are not going to go into this business. They’re not going to continue on.”
Zeldin, who is running for governor on the Republican ticket, says the changes hurt the workers as well as the farm owners. He said...
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