Unions and OT in Ag Pt 2

From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. On one side, farm worker advocates want to push for the unionization of the workforce. And if that wasn’t enough, they’ll argue that workers, regardless of what most workers say, also deserve overtime pay.

Shawn Packer, principal at JPH Law, says the overtime debate is damaging to the industry ..

PACKER … “My thing with the overtime is it hurts the employee. It hurts the employer too, but it hurts the employee because you’re limiting the hours that they’re working so that you’re not paying the overtime, so they’re actually making less money.”

So, Packer says these so-called advocates might need to rethink things a bit …

PACKER … “And then when you add in all of the other things that Familia Unidas and all of them are trying to do up in Washington state with the prevailing wage lawsuit and everything, it’s taking money out of the farmworkers pocket. You know, and that’s the unfortunate thing and that’s what we’re actually seeing.”

And regulations, like the heat rule, Packer says just adds to the problems …

PACKER … “One of the things, especially when we started looking at the heat rule and everything else, that’s amazing to me is you’ve got these advocacy organizations that are pushing so hard to keep piece rate, but then we have these regulations that tells us to stop working. And the workers, that’s all they want to do is they want to make that piece rate.”

Bottom line, Packer says with everything the advocates try to do, the workers are making less money.