I am proud to stand up for our New York farmers and oppose Kathy Hochul’s wage board’s reckless overtime proposal that jeopardizes the future of agriculture in New York State and the livelihoods of our hardworking farmers. This week, I led my colleagues in submitting a Congressional comment letter to New York Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon during its 60 day comment period. I brought to their attention that by lowering the threshold from 60 to 40 hours a week, the Farm Laborer Wage Board ignored over 70% of testimony from farmers and scientific reports. This decision would devastate the agriculture landscape of New York by making it less competitive and increase labor costs by 42%.
Upstate New York is home to thousands of dairy farmers, apple growers, and maple producers, who work tirelessly to provide for our communities but are being forced to bear the burdens of poor decisions made in Albany. I will continue to bring the concerns of our farmers to the highest levels and continue to oppose the lowering of the overtime threshold at every turn, because if we have no farms, we have no food.
New Yorkers can submit comments to [email protected] on New York State Department of Labor’s proposed farmworker overtime regulation until December 11, 2022.
|