On Monday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed historic legislation that effectively grants farmworkers the same overtime pay as the rest of the state’s hourly workforce. The law sets a monumental new pay precedent for both the state — the largest agricultural producer in the United States—and the rest of the country at large: California’s farmworkers will be the first in the nation to earn equal overtime wages for their work.
Assembly Bill 1066 requires time-and-a-half pay to all farmworkers who work more than eight hours a day, or 40 hours per week. The process of raising their overtime salaries will be a gradual one, increasing steadily throughout the next six years until 2022. Brown signed the legislation (without issuing comment) following pressure from a heavy contingent of farmworker lobbying (lead by the United Farm Workers union), putting a close to the bill’s contentious journey through the California State Legislature.
“I’m crying tears of joy after so many years that farmworkers have worked so hard to win a significant victory like this that will dramatically change their lives,” Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers association, told theLos Angeles Times on Monday.
[For more of this story, written by Madeleine Thomas, go to https://psmag.com/californias-...1603bffa6#.esii0a791]
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