LAKE COUNTY – After much debate and even prayers from proponents, late last week Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have extended overtime to farm workers at eight hours a day or 40 hours a week.
SB 1121 would have changed the exclusion that currently has farm workers across California receiving overtime pay at 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week, reducing it to the same overtime standards as other workers.
The bill was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter), who actually walked the bill down to Schwarzenegger personally on July 20, as Lake County News has reported.
United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez condemned Schwarzenegger's July 28 veto, issuing a statement the same day in which he claimed that Schwarzenegger “has decided not to end this vestige of a caste system of farm labor that treats California farm workers as if they are not important workers or important human beings.”
Rodriguez said farm workers' exclusion from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 – the law governing overtime for employees – “is part of the shameful legacy of racism” that he said initially targeted the 85 percent of southern African Americans who were farm workers in the 1930s.
“Today most farm workers are Latinos. Excluding farm workers from overtime was wrong in 1938; it is still wrong today,” Rodriguez said.
The Lake County Farm Bureau had opposed the bill, saying it would hurt agriculture because of the additional costs, and also would result in workers receiving less in their paychecks.
The Lake County Board of Supervisors approved a letter to Schwarzenegger proposed by the Farm Bureau urging a veto, as Lake County News has reported.
“The growers I talked to here in Lake County would actually have cut hours on their employees,” hired more employees and changed shifts to avoid paying overtime, according to Lake County Farm Bureau Executive Director Chuck March.
“Ag is seasonal up here so the workers want to get as many hours as they can,” he said.
March said he received a lot of calls and inquiries from growers concerned about the bill, who wanted to know how to stop it. “There was a lot of interest in it.”
In his veto statement on the bill, Schwarzenegger said California enacted “sweeping” legislation in 1999 concerning overtime wages and guidelines for paying worker overtime after eight hours of work.
“However, in enacting the 'Eight-Hour-Day Restoration and Workplace Flexibility Act of 1999' the Legislature specifically exempted agricultural workers from such overtime requirements, recognizing that agricultural work is different from other industries: it is seasonal, subject to the unpredictability of Mother Nature, and requires the harvesting of perishable goods,” he said.
Schwarzenegger pointed out that California “is the most progressive state in the nation by allowing overtime pay for agricultural employees after 10 hours of work,” while federal law still exempts workers employed in agriculture from overtime pay altogether.
Stating that his administration “has made great strides to improve the lives of agricultural workers” – including increases to the minimum wage, water supply legislation and first-in-the-nation outdoor heat stress regulations – Schwarzenegger nevertheless called SB 1121 a well-intentioned measure that wouldn't improve farm workers' lives.
Instead, he said the legislation would put additional burdens on business, result in less employment and lower wages.
“Finally, it should be noted that Senate Bill 1121 would not just change the rules governing overtime pay for agricultural workers, but would also apply California’s confusing and burdensome rest and meal requirements,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “Unfortunately, while there have been several attempts to clean up this section of law, efforts at comprehensive reform continue to fail. There is no reason to exacerbate this continuing problem by adding agricultural workers to it.”
Hinting at who UFW might support in the fall gubernatorial election, Rodriguez said the only California governor who took the first steps at ending discrimination against farm workers was Jerry Brown, who in 1976 approved overtime for farm workers after 10 hours a day.
“Now is the time to end a grievous wrong that can no longer be justified or tolerated,” Rodriguez said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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