The California
Assembly was flooded with farm workers demanding over time pay on Monday, Aug.
29.
The
Assembly sent Gov. Jerry Brown a
hard-fought and historic expansion of overtime rules for farmworkers, but it
remains uncertain whether the Democratic governor will sign off on the measure.
“A nearly
identical bill fell three votes short of passage on the Assembly floor in May,
with 15 Democrats voting against the measure or declining to vote. But on
Monday, an amended version of the measure, now contained in Assembly Bill 1066,
passed on a 44-32 vote.” Local Assembly members Ken Cooley (Rancho Cordova) and Jim Cooper (District 9- Elk Grove) voted
against the bill.
“Agricultural
workers already receive some overtime pay under California law thanks to a 2002
state directive that entitles them to extra wages if they work more than 10
hours in a day or more than 60 hours in a week. AB 1066 would expand that to
bring it more in line with other industries, offering time-and-a-half pay for
working more than eight hours in a day or 40 in a week and double pay for
working more than 12 hours a day. The pay boosts would kick in incrementally
over four years, and the governor could suspend them for a year if the economy
falters.”
Business groups
quickly condemned the vote. “We are deeply concerned with the passage of AB
1066 today and the devastating impacts this bill will have on our small,
independent farmers and the workers they employ,” said Tom Scott, state
executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business.
Ahead of Monday’s
vote, Assembly members heard from both farmworkers who forfeited a day’s pay to
visit offices and press for the bill and from farm industry representatives,
including minority farm owners, who warned lawmakers the measure would
devastate small-scale growers and diminish work for laborers.
Supporters invoked
fairness, justice and the need to rectify a history rife with labor
exploitation.
“Right now, under
current law, we’re telling our farmworkers, ‘you are different than other
workers. You are less than other workers. You are less valued and less
valuable,’” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, whose parents organized
Central Valley farmworkers in the movement championed by Cesar Chavez.
See Sacbee.com
Advocates from the
United Farm Workers Union organized repeated demonstrations at the
capitol. Several Democrats did not
support the bill.
Farm workers were
excluded from the 1936 National Labor Relations Act. California has incrementally increased
worker protection providing supervised elections, safety in the fields,
unemployment insurance and other protections that do not exist in other states.
This passage of
overtime pay is a significant gain. In
part it is a result of the significant growth of Latino power in the
legislature where the Speaker of the Assembly and the Senate are both leaders
of their respective Latino caucuses.
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