Farmers praise ruling denying unions for workers
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Agricultural leaders are celebrating a state Supreme Court’s dismissal of a lawsuit that would have given farm workers collective bargaining rights.
Farmers say giving workers the right to strike threatens their industry by possibly interrupting jobs such as planting, harvesting and feeding animals that are critical to a farm’s survival.
“This is a victory for family farms,” said Salem dairyman Neal Rea, chairman of the nearly 1,000-member Agri-Mark milk cooperative. “Workers aren’t the ones who want these rights. It’s people who want to make money by getting them to create unions.”
But the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the 2016 suit, plans to appeal the decision.
“We will not rest until farm workers are free to organize and have a voice in their working conditions,” Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “(This) decision will not deter us from making sure that farm workers enjoy the same basic rights as every other hardworking New Yorker.”
Under the New York Constitution, all workers have a right to organize and collectively bargain. However, farm workers are excluded by a provision called the Employee Relations Act, which recognizes “the unique challenges of farming, including the seasonal nature of farm labor and the perishability of crops.”
The Civil Liberties Union says this measure was rather the product of racially-motivated, segregationist politics dating to the 1930s, when the farm worker exclusion was established.
But Justice Richard McNally disagreed in a decision handed down in state Supreme Court Albany County, on Tuesday.
“The plaintiffs and the state have not demonstrated that the Labor Law statues are racially discriminatory or that farm workers are a suspect class entitled to constitutional protections,” he said. “Any changes to the SERA (State Employee Relations Act) should emanate with the New York State Legislature as ‘the legislative power of this state shall be vested in the senate and the assembly.’”
New York Farm Bureau ob-
tained intervenor status in the case after Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sided with farm workers, and refused to defend the Civil Liberties Union’s suit against the state.
Farm Bureau represents thousands of farms across the state.
“New York Farm Bureau will always stand up for our members, either in court or at the capitol, to ensure that their rights are protected and their voices are heard,” President David Fisher said.
The basis for Farm Bureau’s argument against collective bargaining is that farm work is unlike most other jobs, where eighthour days are the norm.
Creating unions would allow workers to collect overtime pay, which many farms, already struggling to make ends meet, simply couldn’t afford, Rea said.
“Workers want more hours, not less,” he said. “Farm owners work long hours, too.”
Also, agricultural work is highly weather-dependent, sometimes forcing people to work extra long days when conditions permit, Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Ammerman said.
“Last year’s growing season demonstrated that,” he said. “Weeks of heavy rains followed by shorter bouts of sunshine forced farmers and their employees to squeeze in weeks of work into just a few dry days. Also, work never stops inside the barn. Cows need to be fed and milked multiple times every day. A farm worker strike or confining work agreements could jeopardize a crop or the health of an animal.”
“Farmers have great respect for the people who they employ, and this court victory does not diminish that,” Ammerman said. “They value their employees’ commitment, work ethic, and the partnership it takes to get the job done on the farm.”
In its suit, the Civil Liberties Union represented three plaintiffs — farm worker Crispin Hernandez, the Workers’ Center of Central New York and the Worker Justice Center of New York. The Civil Liberties Union says Hernandez was fired in September 2015 by one of New York’s largest dairies, Marks Farms LLC, in Lowville, after his employer saw him meeting with co-workers and Workers’ Center officials to discuss workplace conditions.
The meeting took place after work hours and in a worker’s personal residence. Hernandez had been working 12-hour shifts six days a week at Mark’s Farms since he was a teenager, but he lost both his job and his home, the Civil Liberties Union says.
“Because of an outdated law, the people we rely on for the food in our kitchens are condemned to poverty, abuse and even death,” said Erin Beth Harrist, Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney and lead counsel on the case. “We will appeal this ruling and continue to fight this law, which violates our constitution and our state’s commitment to human rights.”