California farmworkers will receive better overtime pay thanks to a labor policy that was signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday, making farmworkers in the state eligible for the same overtime pay as other employees.
The new law, Assembly Bill 1066, authorized by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), is set to start in phases in 2019 and take its full form for most farms by 2022, The Associated Press noted.
The bill is expected to “lower the current 10-hour day threshold for overtime by half an hour each year until it reaches the standard eight-hour day by 2022,” the Los Angeles Times noted.
“This is a historic day,” Gonzalez said, according to the Times. “They are finally going to be treated with the same dignity and respect as every other hourly worker.”
Gov. Brown’s signature comes just a few months after a similar bill failed to pass.
President of the United Farm Workers union, Arturo Rodriguez, thanked Brown for “making a tough decision like this and changing the course of history,” the Times reported.
“We’ve been able to break the barrier for farmworkers here in California,” Rodriguez said, according to the AP. “We were fighting hard just to get this one first.”
The UFW referred to Brown’s decision as “a victory in a nearly 80-year quest to establish broad rights and protections for farm laborers,” the Times noted.
Not everyone views this new bill as a victory, though. Republicans in the Legislature were against the bill, saying “it will hurt workers and farmers,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
State Sen. Jim Nielsen, a farmer and rancher, said the law’s timing is off as the state’s agricultural output is lacking after a severe drought and other California regulations.
“Farmers, ranchers and growers cannot afford this mandate,” Nielsen said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Farmworkers will end up working for one farm in the morning, getting back in their cars to drive to another farm to work the afternoon shift.”
California’s agriculture industry is a $54 billion industry with more than 75,000 farms and ranches, the Journal reported.
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