Farmworkers bill debated at hearing
Proponents of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act cited anecdotes of mistreatment of workers while farmers called on state senators to oppose the bill during a hearing Monday.
The bill includes a list of labor requirements that would provide overtime pay, rest days, collective bargaining and workers' compensation for farm laborers.
The hearing, before the Senate Agriculture Committee, lasted nearly seven hours. The committee is chaired by Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent.
"New York's farmers already operate under some of the most comprehensive regulations to protect the rights of farmworkers, paying their workers fair wages and additional benefits, including housing," Sen. Aubertine said. "This bill stands to impose expansive and onerous new mandates on farmers who do not get to set the price they get for their goods."
Farmworker rights advocates brought claims of poor housing, mistreatment and sexual abuse.
Senators challenged stories from Mary Kerry Kennedy, of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Justice and Human Rights, of sexual abuse on farms. Sen. Catharine M. Young, R-Olean, the committee's ranking minority member, asked whether she encouraged women to report abuse or reported it herself.
"The fact that the people on this panel don't understand what it's like for a woman to decide to come forward is astounding to me," Ms. Kennedy said. "It has to be a woman's decision to come forward."
Sen. George H. Winner Jr., R-Elmira, asked whether new legislation would improve poor living conditions or whether enforcement of state laws would be more effective.
"The ability to bargain together to get better conditions is part of this bill," said Richard C. Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers. "The ability of the state to enforce laws such as the ones on the book is simply limited by the number of people who travel around the state to visit farms."
Workers on farms with sales of more than $650,000 a year would be allowed to unionize as part of the bill.
The portion of the bill considered most onerous to farmers is the requirement to pay workers time and a half for hours above 10 per day or 60 per week. That threshold would drop to 55 hours per week in 2013.
"If we did not treat farmworkers fairly, they would leave and work for another farm," said Jim Bittner, president of Singer Farms, a cherry, apricot and apple farm in Appleton. "These people want to work as many hours as possible during our short harvest season."
The added cost of overtime would drive farms out of business, farm proponents said. That assertion was countered by workers rights advocates.
"In each of these provisions, farms are going to be asked to do less than even their counterparts in every other industry are," said Jordan Wells, a coordinator of Justice for Farmworkers, a statewide coalition of churches, labor and students fighting for the bill. "It will not drive farms out of business."
Under 2007 prices, the overtime cost would add a production cost of one cent per gallon of milk, he said.
Sen. Aubertine countered, "That penny seems inconsequential, but it's 11 cents a hundredweight. Eleven cents a hundredweight is more than some of these farmers make."
In January, farmers in Northern New York were paid $15.31 per 100 pounds of milk.
"As inconsequential as that seems, we all want to do the right thing — none of us want to see workers exploited," Mr. Aubertine said. "Farmers are labor, too, they work just as hard and, in many times, harder than the people working shoulder to shoulder with them."
