The overtime threshold has dropped to 40 hours for farmworkers in New York.
State Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon has approved a recommendation from the Farm Laborer Wage Board to reduce the overtime threshold from 60 hours to 40 hours that will be phased in over a ten-year time period.
Three tax credits were passed by the State Legislature and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul this year in anticipation of the adoption of the lower overtime threshold recommendations. These include an Investment Tax Credit that was increased from four to 20% for farm businesses, the Farm Workforce Retention tax credit that was increased to $1,200 per employee, and a Refundable Overtime Tax Credit was established for overtime hours paid by farm employers.
Advocates for farmworkers have pushed for the change, calling it a necessary way of including agriculture workers in a nearly century-old labor law. But farmers have been angered by the effort to lower the overtime threshold, calling it out of touch with the ways of a working farm and warning it could have dire financial consequences for them.
State Senator George Borrello issued a statement saying the decision will “..spell the end for many farms in this once-vibrant industry and force others to scale down production, increase automation or relocate. Farm workers have repeatedly said that this move will force them to seek work in other states where they can work without limits on their earnings.”
New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher, who was the only member of the Farm Laborer Wage Board to vote against the overtime recommendation, also issued a statement saying, “This is a difficult day for all those who care about New York being able to feed itself. Commissioner Reardon’s decision to lower the farm labor overtime threshold will make it even tougher to farm in this state and will be a financial blow to the workers we all support.
Moving forward, farms will be forced to make difficult decisions on what they grow, the available hours they can provide to their employees, and their ability to compete in the marketplace. All of this was highlighted in the testimony and data that the wage board report and the commissioner simply ignored.”
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