Ag committee kills farm bill

A hotly debated bill to expand farmworker rights was defeated Tuesday by the state Senate Agriculture Committee.

Six of the committee's nine senators — Darrel J. Aubertine, Michael H. Ranzenhofer, James L. Seward, David J. Valesky, George H. Winner Jr. and Catharine M. Young — voted against the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, which would have provided overtime pay, rest days, collective bargaining and unemployment benefits to farm laborers.

The bill is now dead.

"The merits of the bill frankly hurt farm workers, consumers and farmers collectively," said Mr. Aubertine, the Cape Vincent Democrat who chairs the committee. "There were a lot of weak points."

Mr. Aubertine said the overtime regulation alone would have compelled farmers to cut each worker's hours to avoid the increased pay, which would create fewer opportunities for laborers to earn what they wanted and would make the jobs less desirable.

The chairman also said he was troubled that the bill made no differentiation between piecework, such as apple picking, and shift work, like on a dairy farm.

Mrs. Young, R-Olean, and Mr. Valesky, D-Oneida, said they opposed the bill, in part, because it included regulations that were redundant or unnecessarily burdensome on one of the state's top industries.

Sen. Neil D. Breslin, D-Albany, was the lone vote for the bill. Sens. William T. Stachowski, D-Lake View, and Velmanette Montgomery, D-Brooklyn, voted to move the bill to the next committee without recommending its passage.

Proponents said the bill was necessary to improve worker conditions and prior claims of poor housing, mistreatment and sexual abuse.

Justice for Farmworkers, a statewide coalition of churches, labor interests and student groups fighting for the bill, also objected to the legislation's being sent to the Agriculture Committee because it did not propose changing state Agriculture and Markets Law.

The vote Monday ended a seven-month-long investigation of the bill by the committee, which included a series of roundtable discussions and culminated with a seven-hour hearing March 1 in Albany.

"Anyone who participated in that hearing and paid attention could not have possibly come away without realizing that this legislation was not only not necessary but harmful to the farm community it desired to protect," said Mr. Winner, R-Elmira.

But Jordan Wells, Justice for Farmworkers spokesman, said the hearing "was pure political theater" complete with "groomed facts and groomed witnesses."

The legislation, he said, has been involved in the "most contorted, perverted treatment of a bill in the Senate this year."

Mr. Aubertine, a former dairy farmer who now raises livestock and grows crops, said he "wouldn't stand idly by while anyone's rights were trampled upon or people were exploited."

But it was imperative, he said, "to craft a piece of legislation that is fair across the board to farmworkers, farmers and consumers."

He said, "My recommendation to the advocates is: Don't go away mad. Work with us, not against us. We can come up with something."

Mr. Wells said the fight would continue, but he did not know what the next step would be.

"This campaign stretches back many years," he said. "Today is obviously a victory of the Sen. Aubertine and the industry lobby. But it's certainly not for the people of New York and farmworkers."

The bill's defeat was cheered by its principal opponent, the New York Farm Bureau.

"Today's vote follows a careful and thorough deliberation by the Senate Ag Committee and their conclusion was clear: We are already paying employees a good wage, or just like any other employee they would choose to leave and find alternative employment," President Dean Norton said in a statement. "We will continue to compensate and treat employees fairly, because it is the right thing to do."

"No farmer has ever asked for an exemption from basic laws concerning civil rights or basic justice — farm employees have the same rights to workplace safety and treatment as all other workers," he said.