California Growers  Furious at Ag Secretary Tom's Vilsack

California Growers Furious at Ag Secretary Tom's Vilsack

Susan Allen
Susan Allen
California Growers are furious at Ag Secretary Tom’s Vilsack for his support of the agriculture overtime Bill, that recently passed the California Assembly. AB 1066.that would make California the first state in the U.S. to mandate the payment of overtime to farm workers after eight hours worked in a day or 40 hours worked in a week, The previous law mandated that overtime be paid when workers logged more than 10 hours per day or 60 hours per week. California Ag Leaders say that the California Assembly's passage of overtime regulations for farm workers will hurt farm workers instead of helping them and feel betrayed by Ag Secretary Vilsack. Western Ag Processors Association president Roger Isom

ISOM:Recently this last week when USDA Secretary Vilsack was actually calling assemblymen in this state urging them to support this bill, we were outraged because in his own home state when he was governor, the state of Iowa, has the lowest ag wages and has no overtime. The majority of these states, 45 states have no over overtime. You could work 16, 20 hours and not pay overtime.

He says this on top of everything else in California will make it virtually impossible for their farmers to compete.

ISOM: We already have the most stringent overtime regulations for farm workers in the country, ALREADY before this was adopted, and now we have made it worse! We are going to have the highest minimum wage of any farm state out there so how do we compete?

You can’t so let's hope Governor Brown veto’s this bill.

 

 

 

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