Assemblymen say bill would be ‘nail in coffin’ for farms
Lawmakers deride 8-hour workday, overtime provisions
The Daily Mail
June 23, 2009

CATSKILL — A bill that could force increased operational costs incurred by local farms passed in the State Assembly earlier this month, but many familiar with farming operations and the legislation fear that such a law would harm area farms and farm workers.

The bill, if passed by the state Senate and signed into law, would require farm laborers to work an eight-hour workday and requires farms to pay time-and-a-half wages for overtime.

Columbia County Farm Bureau President Charles Larsen said the overtime wage requirements could put an added stress on both farm owners and farm workers.

“It could hurt them tremendously,” Larsen said.

Larsen worries that farms will have to add workers to their rolls while limiting the numbers of hours each picker can work to 40 per week. Laborers used to, and willing to work upward of 50 or 60 hours a week would find themselves taking a severe pay cut.

He said a starting wage for some farm workers is $10 and that he knew of one farmer further upstate who figured out that in a two-week time period he would have to pay his workers a total of $6,000 in overtime.

“That is an impact,” he said. “Agriculture cannot afford time-and-a-half.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agriculture Statistic Service, there were 455 farms in Columbia County in 2007 and 310 in Greene County.

A 2007 census by the department reported that 52 Greene County farms hired a total of 282 workers and a total of 885 workers were employed by 19 different farms in Columbia County.

The census showed a total of 36,400 farms in the state.

Eric Ooms, the vice president of the New York State Farm Bureau, said workers who come to New York State farms on the H-2A guestworker program are legally only supposed to work on one farm and therefore cannot take a second job harvesting crops or on a dairy farm to supplement their incomes.

“That limits people’s earning opportunities while they are there,” he said.

He said farm workers usually are provided housing by their employers and are offered child care services. Requiring farms to pay worker for overtime could jeopardize financial stability of some farms.

“We are talking about driving the costs up and I don’t know any business that likes that,” he said, “and can afford it.”

Assemblyman Pete Lopez, R-Schoharie, whose district includes Greene County and who led the debate against the bill, said the vote was ironic because only two years ago the Assembly acknowledged that the dairy industry was in distress. At the time, he said, the price of milk was nearly $1 per 100 pounds higher than it is today.

Lopez argued that farms cannot operate eight hours a day because animal births and crop harvests could not be scheduled in such a parameter and said the legislation forced a cookie-cutter employment model on a dynamic industry.

“It is the nail in the coffin for New York State farms” he said.

Assemblyman Marc Molinaro, R-Red Hook, reiterated that crops had a specific window in which they could be harvested.

He explained that conditions on farms can be volatle and fragile due to weather and economy.

Rains and droughts can affect a crop’s yield, he said. Prices fluctuate.

He offered $200 million as the cost New York farms would spend on overtime wages should the bill pass a Senate vote and become a law.

Molinaro warned that farmers overseas would stock store shelves with their products if the costs of running a farm in New York became prohibitive.

“This is a localized industry that faces international competition and this bill does nothing to recognize that

Molinaro and Lopez charged that some legislators from downstate lacked knowledge of the way farms work.

Lopez said the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, D-Queens, had admitted to her colleagues that she was one of those legislators.

Molinaro said no one in the farming industry of which he knew had been asking for the provisions set forth in the bill.

“It is offensive at best,” he said.