It’s the Constitution, period

The New York Constitution ringingly enshrines the right of workers in this state to organize and collectively bargain. Here are the exact words of Article I, the Bill of Rights §17: “Labor of human beings is not a commodity nor an article of commerce and shall never be so considered or construed. Employees shall have the right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”

The voters of New York approved the Constitution including that language on Nov. 8, 1938. Never has it been amended. Never has it been watered down.

Even so, the state labor relations act, which applies the constitutional provision, specifically excludes fully 100,000 workers from equal protection of the law. It simply defines the term “employees” to exclude “any individual employed as farm laborers.”

The Constitution is the ultimate legal authority. No statute may validly contravene its provisions. Yet, for decades, powerful upstate agricultural interests have succeeded in deterring governors, attorneys general and the Legislature from enforcing the plain meaning of the state Bill of Rights.

While pressing the Legislature to grant farm workers other rights — such as overtime — that are guaranteed to laborers at large, this page has brought the collective bargaining constitutional provision to the attention of governors and attorneys general Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson, Eric Schneiderman and Andrew Cuomo.

While all said they backed full rights for field hands, none acted.

On Tuesday, the New York Civil Liberties Union will ask a court to order enforcement of a standard that the officials charged with upholding the constitution have ignored. They have had their legal rationales but now the NYCLU’s coming suit will give a judge, and no doubt appellate judges, jurisdiction to decide whether the Constitution means exactly what it says.

Generally charged with defending New York statutes, Schneiderman should throw in the towel on this one.

The plaintiffs could very well include two men who were fired by the Marks Farms dairy in upstate Lewis County last summer and who were profiled in this space last Labor Day. The dairy terminated them for meeting with organizers and learning about their limited rights.

Best of luck to the civil liberties union in forcing the issue after years of shameful legislative obstruction by the Farm Bureau growers lobby.