AB 1313, by Assemblymember Michael Allen
(D-Santa Rosa), is United Farm Workers-sponsored bill to grant overtime pay for
farm workers after eight hours a day or 40 hours a week just like any other
California workers. AB 1313 needs a few more votes to make it off the state
Assembly floor and go to Governor Jerry Brown's desk.
Both local Assemblyman Richard Pan, and
Assemblywoman Alyson Huber voted against the bill. We have endorsed these Democrats in the past.
It has been 74 years since farm workers and
domestic workers were left out of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the
landmark federal law setting minimum wages and overtime for nearly all American
workers.
To win votes from Southern lawmakers back in
1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was forced to exempt farm and domestic
workers. Nearly all of those workers in the Southern U.S. then were African
Americans. Today in California and across the country, most farm workers are
Latinos.
The exclusion of farm workers from overtime
after eight hours was wrong in 1938. It is wrong now. The time has come for it
to end. California provides 80 percent of the nation's fresh produce and as a
result its agricultural laws set the standard for the nation. Tell your
Assemblymember to end this shameful legacy of racism in California by voting in
favor of AB 1313.
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