For the first time in almost 70 years, legislators are poised to approve a far-reaching farmworkers rights bill that supporters hope will improve the working conditions of tens of thousands of laborers across the state.

Standing in opposition, though, is the state’s powerful Farm Bureau, which is arguing that the bill would unfairly burden small family farms at a time when many are struggling in a turbulent economy.  

The fight is playing out in the narrowly divided Senate (the Assembly has already approved the bill), with Democrats split over overtime and collective bargaining provisions.

Supporters are counting on several Republicans to vote for the bill in order to compensate for the loss of two key Democratic vote, upstaters Darrel Aubertine and David Valesky. Joseph Robach, a Rochester-area Republican, has pledged to support the bill.

The bill would provide collective bargaining rights to some farmworkers, as well as mandate a day off per week.

Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson said that he and Majority Leader Pedro Espada were committed to passing the bill soon, but would not yet commit to a hard date for a vote.

“The issue is very important to our conference, and we hope to have finalized legislation soon,” said Sampson spokesperson Austin Shafran.

But the Farm Bureau and several key lawmakers are still arguing that the measure would be a severe blow to the upstate rural economy, with costs to New York farmers estimated to exceed $200 million.

“The drive to make this bill a reality [reflects] a profound lack of understanding of agriculture in New York State,” Aubertine said. “Agriculture does not conform to rules that govern other, nine-to-five kind of industries. Those rules just do not apply.”  

Aubertine, a dairy farmer from Cape Vincent, said that he has received around 30 letters from constituents supporting the bill, but over 800 from farmers around the state who oppose it.

Some Senate aides have questioned the urgency in which some senators are pushing this issue, saying they have had little time to digest the bill and its amendments before conference meetings.

The amendments were agreed to during intense negotiations over the Jan. 8 weekend, with the bill’s supporters conceding to limiting the collective bargaining provision to just 5 percent of the state’s farms, and pushing back the threshold for when overtime pay kicks in, from eight hours a day or 40 hours a week to 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week.

Farmers who employ “piece-rate” workers, or workers who are paid based on performance, would also be given special attention under the revised bill. Those farmers would be required to pay only 1.5 times the minimum wage for overtime hours rather than 1.5 times the worker’s regular rate. Small farms would be allowed exemption from workers compensation and unemployment tax liabilities, and the bill’s effective dates would also be pushed back.

The bill’s supporters described the negotiations as a last-ditch effort to appease the Farm Bureau.

“We’ve spent a lot of time listening to the concerns raised by the Farm Bureau and by farmers across New York state,” said Rev. Richard Witt, director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry. “I think these amendments go a long way toward addressing their concerns.”

One Senate aide went even further, saying the bill’s supporters have practically bent over backwards to meet the demands of the Farm Bureau and its supporters.

“Every time there was a concern,” the aide said, “we’d accommodate it.”

But some of the bill’s supporters have expressed dismay that the amendments may have gone too far in conceding ground to agriculture interests.

“I absolutely have concerns about any concessions that were made,” said Lew Papenfuse, executive director of Farmworkers Legal Services of New York, adding that it was his belief that the Farm Bureau had far too much influence in the Legislature.  

Espada defended the amendments, saying that many of them were made at the behest of farmworkers rights groups, like Justice For Farmworkers and the Rural and Migrant Ministry.

“I’ve taken my cues all along from the advocates,” Espada said. “I asked them only to direct and give me my marching order in terms of what is acceptable to them.”

Espada said he had been championing the issue for almost 16 years, when the bill was first introduced by the late State Sen. Olga Mendez.

Espada made headlines last August, just as the repercussions of the Senate coup were subsiding, when he trespassed onto a Hudson Valley farm to highlight the working conditions of over 100 laborers there.

The issue of rights for farmworkers, many of whom are undocumented workers, is one that hits close to home for him, he said.

“There is no economic, political or moral justification to keep tens of thousands of people under subhuman working conditions,” he said.

Peter Gregg, a spokesperson for the Farm Bureau, said Espada’s attachment to the issue of farmworkers rights has done more harm than good, given the Bronx lawmaker’s controversial past and the numerous investigations into his business practices.

“He certainly has a terrible reputation,” Gregg said.

The problem is not just Espada, though, said State Sen. Catharine Young, a Republican from Western New York, who was raised on a dairy farm and vehemently opposes the bill.

The problem, Young said, is the entire Democratic conference.

“If this is pushed through by the Senate Democrats,” Young said, “it proves again that they have an anti-upstate agenda.”

And with buying locally grown food gaining in popularity around the state, especially in New York City, Young says she cannot understand why Democrats are bent on burdening farmers with more regulations.

“It’s fresh, local and safe—those are the three criteria,” she said. “I think it’s crazy to push through a bill that would hurt our farms.”

--
Above Illustration by: Sam Washburn