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Sen. George Borrello and Assemblyman Andrew Goodell are looking for bipartisan support to eliminate the Farm Laborers Wage Board.
Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, and Goodell, R-Jamestown, have introduced S.9509 to eliminate the farm labor board, which was established in the 2019 Farm Workers Fair Labor Practices Act to evaluate lowering the overtime threshold for farm labor overtime from the 60 hours a week established by law for farmworkers in 2019. The wage board decided to recommend no changes in December 2020 before starting a new process in 2021. The hearings were held by Zoom.
In January, the wage board recommended lowering the overtime threshold to 40 hours over 10 years starting in 2024. Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to take action on the Farm Laborers Wage Board recommendation after a flurry of opposition from farm organizations and lawmakers, including Borrello.
The wage board proposes four-hour decreases in the overtime threshold every other year. The state did budget did include a Farm Worker Overtime Tax Credit to reimburse farms for overtime expenses if the overtime threshold goes below 60 hours a week. Farmers would pay overtime wages up front and then be reimbursed for overtime hours after the fact. It's also unlikely hours worked over 60 hours would be covered by the tax credit.
"Throughout the public comment period, feedback from farmers and farmworkers has overwhelmingly been that the impact of going from 60 hours to anything less will create a labor crisis for New York agriculture," Borrello and Goodell wrote in their legislative justification. "Farmers provide a public good, and they have been relied on more than ever during the pandemic. The state legislature should provide them some relief from the already onerous burden the Farm Workers Fair Labor Practices Act and other existing government mandates have placed on them. This legislation seeks to keep the overtime threshold at 60 hours."
The legislation is similar to a hostile amendment Borrello tried to introduce on the Senate floor in March, but the amendment was defeated. Borrello also tried in 2021 to pass legislation giving the wage board until Dec. 31, 2024, to gather data on farm worker overtime, farm wages and overtime rates in neighboring states and if there were enough farm workers. That bill has not moved out of committee.
"Data from a Cornell University study shows the potentially devastating side effect of this law. The study concludes that 70% of New York farm labor guest workers would not return to New York, should the threshold be lowered, and would seek work in other states. In the state-conducted hearings on lowering of the threshold, overwhelmingly, the workers that testified were against lowering the threshold," Borrello and Goodell wrote. "The wage board making this crucial and potentially harmful decision is made up of just three people -- only one of which has agriculture experience."