Throughout the country, overtime laws continue to threaten the dairy labor force. In fact, farmers from Minnesota, California and Washington say access to a qualified labor force is the No. 1 concern they have for their business in 2021. In Washington, dairy farmers will have to pay $20.54 per overtime hour in 2021.
According to the Spokesman-Review, in a 2016 class-action suit brought by Jose Martinez-Cuevas and Patricia Aguilar, the dairy workers alleged that they were not compensated for time worked in excess of 40 hours while working in dangerous conditions at the Deruyter Brothers Dairy, in Outlook, Washington, which is between Yakima and the Tri-Cities.
Court records show the dairy milks about 3,000 cows per shift, three shifts a day, seven days a week. The Spokesman says the employees alleged that the dairy failed to pay minimum wage, did not provide adequate rest and meal breaks and failed to compensate workers for duties before and after their shifts and overtime for work exceeding 40 hours.
“While these rulings are viewed as friendly to workers, the real impact is that dairies cannot afford to pay overtime and will reduce hours for employees or make investments into technology to eliminate positions,” says Washington dairy farmer Dwayne Faber.
California was the first state to implement overtime rules for farming operations (on a phased-in approach). In New York the state Department of Labor’s Farm Wage Board decided in late December to delay lowering the 60-hour farm labor overtime threshold until at least November 2021.
“I had encouraged giving the process more time to fully evaluate what a lower threshold would mean for all involved, especially with such limited data from this challenging year,” said David Fisher a dairy farmer and New York Farm Bureau president. “I’d like to thank my fellow wage board members for their time and professionalism and encourage the Department of Labor to continue to work with the farming community to do what is best for our farms and employees. We need each other for agricultural production and our rural economies to flourish.”
Analysts agree farmers will continue to face issues with overtime laws in the coming year.
