Episode 78: Fairness for Farmworkers

For most workers, overtime pay after 40 hours was a victory won over 80 years ago, but shockingly for farmworkers it’s a battle still being fought.

Farmworkers in New York State won some very basic rights in 2019 with passage of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act.

Those rights which the New York State AFL-CIO had been fighting for, for years include: the right to organize a union, a mandatory day of rest, and the right to overtime pay.

But the overtime threshold remains unfairly high at 60 hours per week.

On the latest Union Strong podcast our guest is the former president of the New York State AFL-CIO, Denis Hughes.

Denis represents Labor on the Department of Labor's Farm Labor's Wage Board which is scheduled to meet on the overtime threshold within weeks.