![]() ![]() President Biden has pushed for overtime for farmworkers nationwide, without success. As farmers point out, fruits and vegetables don't stop growing on the weekends. The law was billed as a significant and long overdue win for farmworkers who routinely work 10-hour days given everything that has to be accomplished in a relatively short window of time. This dramatic loss in hours has led Mendoza to a difficult conclusion.įruits and vegetables don't take weekends off It's allowed him to keep nearly all his workers to 48 hours a week, not more. Instead, he's brought in additional workers to spread the hours around. Schreiber says already, he cannot afford to pay overtime. This year, the threshold is 48 hours, and next year it drops to 40. Last year, overtime pay kicked in after 55 hours a week. Washington's overtime law included a three-year phase-in, meant to ease the process. "I told Alan, 'You're going to have to pay us a lot of overtime!'" Mendoza says in Spanish about her longtime boss Alan Schreiber, who owns Schreiber Farms. The law began phasing in last year, and by 2024, farmworkers will finally join other workers in earning time-and-a-half after they reach 40 hours in a week.įor Mendoza, the change brought so much promise. In 2021, Washington state passed legislation to level the playing field. But under the Fair Labor Standards Act, agricultural workers are excluded from those protections, a relic of a Jim Crow-era compromise. In the United States, hourly workers have the right to earn 1.5 times their regular wage when they work more than 40 hours in a week. So she was happy when she learned that starting in 2022, she would be paid an overtime wage like workers in other industries. For Patricia Mendoza, working overtime was just a way of life.ĭuring harvest season, she could put in 70 hours a week preparing the fields, planting seeds, and harvesting produce at Schreiber Farms in southeastern Washington state. ![]()
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