Farmworker organizing in Washington is undoing discriminatory labor policies
Last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic kept most people home and emptied supermarket shelves, U.S. farmworkers stayed on the job. Unable to work from home, they sustained their vital but dangerous industry. But they also organized for better working conditions and pay. In central Washington’s fertile Yakima Valley, workers at apple-processing warehouses led wildcat strikes last May and June, ultimately winning the right to form workers’ committees, obtain better personal protective equipment and earn higher wages.
In November, dairy workers won a Washington State Supreme Court case that forced their employers to pay them for overtime work. Federal and state law exempt agricultural workers from certain labor protections, creating a vulnerable class of workers in an industry that depends on minority and migrant labor. The court ruled that the state law preventing overtime payments was unconstitutional.
On May 11, Gov. Jay Inslee, D, signed a bill codifying that decision. The law, which passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, will phase in overtime payments for farmworkers over the next three years. By 2024, agricultural laborers, like most hourly workers, will receive time-and-a-half wages for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Today, Washington has the most comprehensive overtime protection for farmworkers of any state.
For farmworker advocates, securing overtime pay is part of a rising wave of efforts aimed at undoing discriminatory labor and immigration policies. Similar legislation is under consideration in Oregon and Colorado as well as at the federal level. In a press release celebrating the Washington law, President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass legislation addressing farmworker protections. “For too long — and owing in large part to unconscionable race-based exclusions put in place generations ago — farmworkers have been denied some of the most fundamental rights that workers in almost every other sector have long enjoyed,” Biden said. “It is long past time that we put all of America’s farmworkers on an equal footing with the rest of our national workforce.”
Read more: https://www.hcn.org/articles/north-labor-farmworker-organizing-in-washington-is-undoing-discriminatory-labor-policies
(High Country News)
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