Farmers fight bill close to vote in Albany

"Agriculture has never been an hourly business," said David G. Porter, Porterdale Farms, Dry Hill Road. "It's a business to get things done."

Mr. Porter is one of about a dozen Jefferson County farmers and agribusinessmen who are pleading for lawmakers to stop the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act in the state's Senate and Assembly.

The bill, S.2247, will be aired in the Senate Codes Committee on Tuesday. After that, it could be sent to the Senate floor for a floor vote. In the Assembly, as A.1867, it could come to a floor vote at any time.

Supporters of the bill said it would level the field for farmers and farmworkers. Jordan Wells, coordinator of the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign, said all farmers would give similar benefits and all farmworkers would have the same benefits as those in other industries in the state.

"New Yorkers have come to regard farm work as beneath them," he said. "That's informed by the legal protection available to farmworkers."

County Legislator Barry M. Ormsby said farmers frequently give benefits that aren't seen in other industries, including free housing, utilities, beef and transportation.

"The downstate people who crafted the bill have little or no understanding of the north country way of life, of the way things need to operate in agriculture," Mr. Ormsby said.

But Mr. Wells disagreed.

"This campaign is supported primarily by upstate farmworkers groups and upstate religious groups," he said. "It's upstate people versus other upstate people."

In a time of record-high production costs and low milk prices, farmers are worried this will be another nail in the coffin for their farms.

"Farms are a culture, not a factory," said Ronald C. Robbins, North Harbor Dairy, Sackets Harbor. "The workers wouldn't do it if they didn't like it."

He said many of the workers are flexible — working on scheduled days off when it's crunch time to plant, as it was Friday.

He repeated calls for Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, to have the bill stopped before it got out of committee. Sen. Aubertine is chair of the Agriculture Committee, but the bill has gone through the Labor and Codes committees.

Andrew G. Mangione, communications director for Sen. Aubertine, said, "There is both bipartisan support and opposition to the bill. The senator is working with his colleagues to demonstrate the effect the bill would have on farmers, and his colleagues have been receptive."