BOSTON — Farmworkers are hoping lawmakers will advance legislation that raises their pay almost 50% to match the state minimum wage and grants them overtime.
Meanwhile, there’s resistance to the proposed pay raises from farmers who are facing economic pressures.
“What we’re trying to do is address some pretty harmful exemptions in wage and labor law, as they impact farmworkers,” said Maya McCann-Som, a staff attorney for the Central West Justice Center.
McCann-Som spoke during a rally held by the Fairness for Farmworkers Coalition in support of bills (H.2108, S.2011 and S.2012) aimed at boosting farmworkers’ pay and benefits.
Under state law, farmworkers’ minimum wage is $8 per hour — almost half the state’s minimum wage of $15 per hour — and they are not guaranteed overtime pay or paid time off. Legislation (H.2108/S.2012) would allow agricultural workers to accrue up to 55 hours of paid time off per year and raise their pay to match the statewide minimum wage. The bills would also grant anyone working eight hours a day or more two 15-minute breaks.
The legislation is similar to an amendment Sen. Adam Gomez filed — then withdrew — to a sweeping bill the Senate unanimously passed in April aimed at stabilizing the state’s agriculture industry and supporting farmers.
Reps. Carlos Gonzalez of Springfield and Frank Moran of Lawrence are sponsoring the House bill. It has been pending in the House Ways and Means Committee since February after it cleared the House side of the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development in a 9-0 vote. The Senate bill, sponsored by Gomez, of Springfield, and Sen. Jamie Eldridge, of Marlborough, has been sitting in the Committee on Revenue since last February. The committee has a June 25 deadline to vote on it.
Gomez is also sponsoring a bill (S.2011) that would establish a refundable tax credit for farm and agricultural employers that would refund them 40% of overtime wages paid to employees who worked more than 55 hours a week. The bill is also in the Committee on Revenue, which has a June 25 deadline to report on it. Gonzalez and Moran sponsored a similar House bill that the Committee on Revenue included in a study order in April.
Eldridge, who co-chairs the Committee on Revenue, said farmworkers are usually treated well and it’s important that that’s reflected in the law. He represents a suburban district that includes farming towns in Middlesex and Worcester counties.
“I think about my district, which is sort of a suburban rural district in MetroWest. What makes this district so special? Whether you talk about the fruits and produce that are available, whether you’re talking about people coming to visit the farms, whether you’re talking about the jobs that are created in the area, on top of the great work that the farmworkers are doing, so much of that is on the backs of the farmworkers,” he said during the rally. “I greatly appreciate the work of farmworkers across Massachusetts. It is long overdue that the laws of Massachusetts support [them].”
Eldridge said he is “working very hard” to get the bills reported out of committee and there have been some “rather frustrating” talks with the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation regarding the legislation.
Former Rep. Daniel Bosley, now a lobbyist for the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation, testified against the bills during their committee hearings.
Bosley said the bills have a reasonable goal and he supports the provision to raise the minimum wage for farmworkers, noting that most farms pay employees more than $8 per hour. However, Bosley said the group opposes all the other provisions and that he’s “hard-pressed” to find any state law that grants workers accrued time off.
“We wanna continue to talk because we think they’re laudable goals and I appreciate the advocates of this, but we really object to anything other than minimum wage going,” he said during a Committee on Labor and Workforce Development hearing in October.
During a hearing last July on the bills in the Revenue Committee, Karen Schwalbe, executive director of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation, said struggling farms in the state can’t take on the mandates proposed in the legislation.
Schwalbe cited the 2022 Census of Agriculture from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which found the average Massachusetts farm brought in an average net income of $13,500. She also said most farmers are operating at a loss and rely on jobs away from the farm to keep their business afloat.
“Each of these bills would impose new labor mandates on Massachusetts farms that many simply cannot absorb,” she said.
McCann-Som said advocates understand farmers’ concerns and the pressures they are under, and have been having discussions with opponents. She said previous versions of the legislation were sent to study the past two sessions in a row and each time they were tweaked slightly to reflect discussions with opponents.