California revisiting farm-work overtime

MATHEW MIRANDA

The debate over agricultural overtime is headed back to the California Legislature, with a Republican lawmaker spearheading an effort to revert some of the recently won provisions for farmworkers.

Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City, introduced legislation last month to retool a 2016 law that was deemed a “historic expansion” of overtime rules and heavily protested by agricultural business groups. Prior to the law, farmworkers were excluded from federal overtime rules and would only receive overtime after working 10 hours a day or 60 hours in a week.

The new policy took effect in 2019 and mandated a gradual phase-in of overtime hours based on employer size. Full implementation of the law will begin in 2025.

But Gallagher’s bill, Assembly Bill 3056, proposes pulling back the rules and would mandate overtime for farmworkers working more than nine hours in a day or 50 hours in a week. He argues that the 2016 law did not account for the “realities” of the agriculture industry and is hurting both farmers and their employees.

“Let’s put a pause on this law and relook at what would be a better way to ensure that we are benefiting farmworkers and also the family farms that provide food for the world and provide jobs in agriculture,” Gallagher said.

United Farm Workers, who backed the 2016 law, has maintained that extending overtime provisions to farmworkers is fair, and the early challenges are reflective of systemic issues in the industry.

Antonio De Loera-Brust, a UFW spokesperson, highlighted that employers are the ones making schedules and cutting worker hours.

“I think it’s very depressing that the growers seem to try to present this binary choice between option A: you work longer hours for marginally more money, or option B: you don’t make as much money,” De Loera-Brust said.

“As we say, we don’t want to work more hours, we want to make more per hour,” he added, in Spanish.

Gallagher’s bill has slim chances in a Legislature dominated by a Democratic supermajority, but it comes as two university analyses show different results on the financial impact of the 2016 law.

The first study, released last year by UC Berkeley, showed that the 2016 overtime law resulted in a negative financial impact for some farmworkers. The research concluded that farmworkers were not working overtime, and their take-home pay decreased because employers reduced their hours. This study aligned with previous reporting from The Fresno Bee, in which both workers and employers expressed frustration with the law.

But, a new assessment from UC Merced Community and Labor Center released this month found that farmworkers’ earnings have increased, even while working fewer hours. California farmworker annual earnings increased by about $3,000 and decreased nearly three hours per week from 2019 to 2022, according to the assessment.

The difference likely stems from the sample sizes, said Rodrigo Alatriste-Diaz, lead author of the UC Merced assessment.

The UC Berkeley study used data from the National Agricultural Workers survey, which surveyed between 300 to 600 California farmworkers for four years. The UC Merced assessment used the American Community Survey, which had a sample size of about 2,000 for six years.

Alatriste-Diaz said the assessment indicated the law is financially beneficial for farmworkers, but said more research is needed.

“The study wouldn’t be able to answer with greater depth like how it’s impacting workers,” he said.