For Immediate Release
January 29, 2025
Contact:
Claudia Quintero, Esq. Director, Central West Justice Center
Maya McCann, Esq.Staff Attorney Central West Justice Center
Claudia RosalesExecutive Director, Pioneer Valley Workers Center (Spanish),
The Fairness for Farmworkers Coalition – a coalition of farmworkers, advocates, and labor and community organizations across Massachusetts, announce the re-filing of the Fairness for Farmworkers Act (“FFA”), a bill which would guarantee fundamental labor protections for Massachusetts farmworkers.
Sponsored by State Representatives Carlos Gonzalez and Frank Moran, and State Senators Adam Gomez and Jamie Eldridge, the FFA will dramatically improve the lives of farmworkers and their families. “Our farmworker community is grateful to Senator Gomez, Representative Gonzalez, Representative Moran, and Senator Eldridge for their full support on this bill, for seeing our circumstances and standing with us as we try to achieve recognition and respect for farmworkers here in Massachusetts and set an example for other states across our nation,” said Claudia Rosales, Executive Director of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center.
The FFA seeks to remedy the exclusion of farmworkers from critical state wage and hour laws. Currently, farmworkers are not guaranteed the state minimum wage of $15/hour, the ability to earn overtime pay, or a day of rest. This legislative session, the FFA is being filed as two bills: “An Act Establishing Fairness for Agricultural Laborers,” and “An Act Relative to Overtime for Agricultural Laborers” that together, will guarantee critical workplace rights for farmworkers. Specifically, the bills will:
a) abolish the agricultural subminimum wage of $8/hour for farmworkers and entitle farmworkers to the state minimum wage of $15/hour;
b) allow farmworkers to earn overtime pay after working 55 hours in a week engaged in primary or both primary and secondary agriculture and clarify the right of farmworkers engaged solely in secondary agriculture to earn overtime after working 40 hours in a week;
c) provide a refundable tax credit to farm employers to offset a portion of the cost of the overtime wages paid;
d) entitle farmworkers to two paid breaks on either side of the lunch break when working eight or more hours in a day; and
e) provide farmworkers with the ability to earn up to 55 hours of paid time off.
“The state of affairs for such an essential workforce – farmworkers – in Massachusetts is a moral failure, they are exempt from minimum wage and overtime protections,” says Attorney Claudia Quintero, co-lead of the Fairness for Farmworkers Coalition and Director of the Central West Justice Center. “The time has come to recognize the invaluable contributions farmworkers make to the Massachusetts economy by eliminating the $8.00/hr. subminimum wage that has been inscribed in our laws for far too long.” Farmwork is skilled, difficult, essential labor performed under extreme conditions; farmworkers deserve to be dignified with fair treatment and wages. The agricultural exemptions codified in state and federal workplace laws are based in racist ideology; it is unacceptable for Massachusetts to continue to exempt a primarily Latino workforce from the wage and hour protections accorded to other workers, now is the time to pass the FFA.
Because of the current wage and hour exemptions, compared to non-farmworker families in the Commonwealth, farmworker families are twice as likely to live in severe poverty. Farmworkers therefore struggle with housing and food insecurity – sometimes unable to purchase the very foods they grow and harvest. Thus, the FFA will ensure that farmworkers’ wages are improved, enabling them to purchase nutritious food, and better positioning them to be able to afford and maintain safe and stable housing. "It is unacceptable that farmworkers, a vital part of our food supply system, are denied overtime pay despite working over 60 hours a week during peak harvest season,” says Georgia Katsoulomitis, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute – MLRI is also a member of the Fairness for Farmworkers Coalition. The “right to earn overtime is not just reasonable—it is a just recognition for the hard workers who ensure food reaches the tables of Massachusetts families." Indeed, Massachusetts is a top state where farms sell direct to consumers – meaning that much of what farmworkers harvest here stays here.
Often on the front lines of climate crises like floods and heat waves, farmworkers are directly impacted by changing weather patterns. Where others can recoup losses, farmworkers are often forgotten or worse lose their jobs if crops cannot be harvested. “It is unconscionable that farmworkers who give so much of themselves for our benefit receive so little in return,” says Quintero. Because farm work requires strenuous labor in hot temperatures, often without sufficient water, rest, or shade, “farmworkers are at critical risk for heat stroke and illnesses related to excess heat. Frequent breaks for hydration are necessary in these times,” says Dr. Norbert Goldfield, Attending Physician at Baystate Medical Center (Baystate). The FFA will provide farmworkers with paid breaks during which farmworkers may rest, drink water, use the restroom facilities, and cool-down in the shade.
The Fairness for Farmworkers Coalition is a group of organizations and individuals, advocating for legislation to improve the lives of farmworkers in the Commonwealth. For more information, please visit https://www.fairnessforfarmworkersma.org/
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