It is hard for organic growers to practice sustainable agriculture without advocating better pay for farm workers. The overtime bill (AB1066) currently on the Governor’s desk would mean a pay increase for our workers. Instead of the current practice of paying overtime after 10 hours, we would pay overtime after 8 hours in the day or 40 hours in the week.
During the busy season, we work 6 days a week and 10-hours a day because things ripen 7 days a week and all day long. Adding the increased overtime pay to the increase in minimum wage to $15/hour starting in 2017, plus health insurance and its rising bite on our budget, plus labor scarcity – and we see that our model of labor-intensive organic farming is perhaps not sustainable. The added expense of these changes will increase our current labor budget by over 35% annually. Different farmers may react differently. Some will cut hours for their crews, and some will create different 6-hour shifts to fill the days work – which could actually harm fieldworkers, who rely on the long hours of summer when the bulk of their annual income is earned. [Read more…]