WAYNE COUNTY, N.Y (WROC) — Anybody working on a farm will no longer have to work more than 60 hours a week to qualify for overtime pay starting in 2024. The Department of Labor Commissioner announced they’ll be eligible after 40 hours on the clock by 2034.
Farmers have concerns, but so do some workers we spoke to. Many who are immigrants and seasonal workers send most of their paychecks back home to family. So, if hours are reduced because farms can’t afford excessive overtime to complete a harvest, they lose money.
For 22 years, Victor Hernandez has worked on the Maple Ridge Fruit Farm in Wayne County after immigrating from Mexico. He worries this new law could soon cap his hours at 40 a week, making him lose the money he sends back to his parents while putting his kids through college.
“To stay at 60 hours would be good because I can get more money to get a more better life for my family,” Hernandez told us. “But this coming down to 40 hours I’ll lose 20 hours a week which is a lot of money for myself. I’d be doing better to stay at 60 hours than coming down to 40.”
To make up for those finances, Victor feels he may have to work a second job, which is likely to pay him less than he does farming another 20 hours a week.
“If I’m working 40 hours here, I’ll need to go work another job for another 10-20 hours,” Hernandez continued. “Because I won’t get overtime at this job, I’ll need to make more money for my family, and bills, because everything is expensive.”
Gary Wells, who owns the Orchard Victor works explained completing a full harvest to meet demand could not be done on 40-hour work weeks nor could they afford all that extra overtime.
“We would have to hire more employees to cover it which would be kind of expensive,” Wells said. “Because we’d need more housing to cover it. Housing is expensive, it just wouldn’t work because the pricing is pretty close, and our margins are close with the prices we’re given from different buyers.”
By law, those in the dairy industry like Kim Skellie of El-Vi Farms can’t raise their own prices to pass it on to consumers. He expects some adjustments he and his partners could make is investing in machinery.
“We will work toward more labor-efficient set-ups on our farm,” Skellie said. “Whether it’d be larger equipment or different process to minimize labor costs because of the increase.”
Although the state has promised farm owners can receive a tax credit to reimburse their extra costs, Skellie is skeptical about how far it would go and come quick enough.
“I think when the rubber really meets the road will the state be able to foot that?” Skellie added. “Because it will get more expensive, and you never know what happens with state budgets. I guess I don’t have a trust there’s going to be a follow through on that.”
A big advocate for this law change was the NYCLU (New York Civil Liberties Union) which released a statement claiming, “New York will prevent future generations of workers from suffering by bringing overdue wage fairness to farmworkers, eradicating this racist Jim Crow policy once and for all.”
Farm owners fear this could lead to them losing workers to other states around the country. Those who passed similar overtime laws for farm staff recently include Washington, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Maryland.