Farm Worker Bill Elicits Divergent Responses

ALBANY — Rural & Migrant Ministries, an interfaith-based organization based in Poughkeepsie, touts the anticipated passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (A1867/S2247) as an action that would help bring “long awaited justice for farm workers.”

The proposed legislation includes provisions to guarantee farm workers overtime pay, expand existing Workers Compensation law, limit the standard workday to eight hours, grant a 24-hour period of rest every seven days and offer unemployment insurance benefits.

Especially for small to mid-sized farms, the legislation would crush agriculture in New York, according to many industry representatives.

“The bill would cost our industry more than $200 million per year in the overtime portion alone,” said Peter Gregg, a spokesman for New York Farm Bureau.

The Justice for Farmworkers Campaign, an outreach of Rural & Migrant Ministries, labels claims such as that as an example of Farm Bureau’s “fear-stoking propaganda and doomsday projections for the state’s $5 billion agriculture industry.”

But Gregg believes that these fears are justified stating, “It is certain to put many farms out of business.”

Chris Pawelski, a 4th-generation onion farmer in Orange County and a New York Farm Bureau board member, said that the bureau’s $200,000 figure “is a conservative estimate. Farms will be dramatically affected, as will the already reeling Upstate economy as a whole. This disproportionately hurts smaller farmers…and will put them out of business.”

He said that the figure was derived from numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jon Greenwood, a St. Lawrence County dairyman, estimated that passage of the bill would cost him $6,000 weekly just in overtime costs.

Jordan Wells of the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign, in response to a recent Dairy Day event, said, “New York milk tastes salty with the sweat of farm workers who are denied even the most basic protection.”

The organization cited New York’s dairy industry as ranking second only to Wisconsin in receiving federal farm subsidies from the government since 2000; however, considering the Empire State’s dairy production rates third in the nation behind California and Wisconsin, the subsidies received appear appropriate.

“The Upstate rural economy cannot stand to lose more businesses through a bill full of unfunded mandates,” Gregg said. “Albany seems eager to do everything it can to wreck the Upstate economy.”

Passage of the legislation could have far-reaching effects beyond the ag industry.

Senator Catharine Young (R-Oleans) stated in a press release, “If these bills go through, it will cause a nuclear explosion that destroys out state’s top industry. Thousands of farms will go under, and countless jobs at farms, processing plants, and farm supply businesses will be lost…it will be the final nail in the coffin for Upstate’s economy.”

Pawelski fears that New York farms will be unable to compete with farms in neighboring states and, ironically, as smaller farms fold, farm workers will lose their jobs and the “factory farms” will be the only farms able to survive, both of which are outcomes unwanted by many of the farm worker advocate groups.

Pawelski refers to Rural & Migrant Ministry as one of the “self-appointed advocates” that “genuine farm workers have not elected nor chosen…to represent them nor speak on their behalf.”

Wells asserts that no farm workers have spoken out against the legislation at the press conferences hosted by Farm Bureau in Albany, and that “we had on our lobby day 25 to 30 farm workers here who essentially were leading the rally. The concept that farm workers are not speaking out on this is a myth propagated by a farm worker in Orange County. I don’t want to even utter his name.”

Presumably, he meant Pawelski, who has long been outspoken against Rural & Migrant Ministries’ actions. Pawelski asserts that Wells’ organization pays farm workers $40 each at the end of each rally to attend.

Wells neither confirmed nor denied this claim, but stated, “When union members are able to come to Albany to lobby, they get time off through the union for collective bargaining. Farm workers are denied the right to lobby and don’t have that luxury. They are paid minimum wage or less. Them losing wages is different from us having paid day off or union release time.”

The legislation was introduced in Feb. 2009 by Senators George Onorato (D-12), Neil Breslin (D-46), Joseph Addabbo, Jr. (D-15), and Diane Savino (D-23).

As of June 8, the legislation was passed in the Assembly, presented to the Senate and referred to the Rules Committee for review.