Every New Yorker deserves basic workplace protections – but a racist vestige of the Jim Crow era is still alive and well in the farm business in our state.
Unlike other hourly workers, farm laborers are not entitled to overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. The reason for this injustice lies in the initial creation of wage and overtime laws more than 80 years ago. These laws took a page from the Jim Crow south and denied overtime pay to agricultural workers and domestic workers because, at the time, most of them were Black.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Gov. Cuomo and the State Department of Labor to support farmworkers’ right to overtime.
Message Recipients:
Governor Andrew Cuomo
Dept. of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon