Our Perspective
Headline
Stop Denying
Farmworkers
Overtime Pay!
A business’s viability must not depend on the
legally allowed exploitation of people which
had originally been based on the color of their
skin. That is morally indefensible.
This is why New York needs to correct the glaring injustice in New York’s
agriculture industry where farmworkers are denied overtime pay after 40 hours.
Unlike most workers in the Empire State — and the rest of the
country — New York’s farmworkers are currently denied overtime pay by
New York law until they’ve worked 60 hours a week. This is a relic of Jim
Crow-era labor laws that have historically treated farmworkers — the
backbone of New York’s agriculture industry — as second-class workers. But
with the proper action, that could soon change.
As directed by the historic Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (which
in 2019 for the first time gave the state’s farmworkers the right to organize
into unions) the New York Department of Labor has convened a wage board
to hold hearings and consider changing the state’s regulations to reduce the
60-hour overtime threshold for farmworkers. The wage board needs to
recognize that farmworkers — who have proven to be truly essential workers
during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — deserve overtime after 40 hours,
which has been long-established for almost every other worker in this country.
Just like all businesses, farms have financial concerns. But the industry
cannot use these concerns to justify laws rooted in the darkest point of our
history to exploit predominantly black, brown and immigrant workers. There
is virtually no evidence to support industry claims that the difference between
success or failure at New York’s farms depends upon the unjust 60-hour
overtime pay threshold.
Even some in the agriculture business agree, including David Breeden
from Sheldrake Vineyards in the Finger Lakes region. “You know what’s
expensive for the coal industry, not having child labor, but we got past that,”
Breeden said during one of the hearings.
Clearly, the farm industry will survive paying its workers fair overtime.
The data in the nation’s largest farm state, California, shows that their
40-hour overtime pay threshold has not corresponded with any negative
impacts or shocks to the California farm economy or labor market. Farms in
Washington state, where 40-hour overtime has also been implemented, are
continuing to thrive.
Last year, the RWDSU helped farmworkers at Pindar Vineyard on Long
Island become the first to win union membership. These essential working
men and women are predominantly full-time New Yorkers. They have families
here that they care for and they have family back home whom they also
support. They want a better future for their children and work to provide a
safe home for them. They take pride in their work, and they want and deserve
dignity at work.
This dignity can only be fully realized when these workers — whom
New Yorkers depend upon every day — are treated fairly and
enjoy the same rights as all other working New Yorkers.
The wage board must implement a 40-hour overtime
threshold for New York’s farmworkers, recognizing
their contributions, and moving toward correcting
the injustices they’ve suffered for decades.
Caribbean L 14 ife, JAN. 28-FEB. 3, 2022
CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
GUYANA
Guyana says it has been able to
expand its market share in the sale of
rice with the country being able to sell
the product in three
new countries including
two in Europe.
Minister of Agriculture,
Zulfikar Mustapha
said Guyana is
now providing British Virgin Islands
(BVI), Estonia and Slovenia with rice
since last year and remains optimistic
that the demand will heighten this
year as government intends to increase
investments in the sector.
Guyana said that notwithstanding
the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic,
as well as the devastating floods in May
and June, revenue from the industry
was estimated at US$201million with
approximately 434, 535 tons of rice
being exported.
A government statement said the
agriculture sector was also able to
contribute some GUY$2.6 billion to
the country’s gross domestic product
(GDP) in 2021 from the exportation of
non-traditional crops.
TRINIDAD
After months of consultations with
stakeholders and uncertainty, the T&T
Government has given the green light
for Carnival safe-zone events to be held
next month despite a surge in deaths
and positive COVID-19 cases which saw
a record 2,063 cases over a 48-hour
period last week
In a release last week, the Ministry
of Tourism, Culture and the Arts
said only concert-type events would be
allowed.
These would include soca and
calypso concerts, calypso tents, soca,
calypso, extempo, and chutney competitions,
steel and concerts, Carnival
King and Queen shows and Carnival
theatre.
However, no fetes and
parties will be allowed
because of the risk of
increased spread of
COVID-19.
It said events will be limited to only
fully vaccinated people (staff, patrons,
service providers, artistes), at 50 percent
capacity, with controlled entry and exit
points, and sanitisation upon entry in
accordance with the public health regulations.
Minister of Tourism, Randall Mitchell
said: “This move represents a first step
in restarting the events sector. Given the
economic importance of Carnival, we felt
it was necessary to consider what was possible
and what events can be held safely.”
The National Carnival Association has
proposed a three-week Carnival period
starting Feb. 4.
—Compiled by Azad Ali
Continued from Page 4
Barbados PM sworn in after 2nd
consecutive elections sweep
By Danica Coto
Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) —
Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley
was sworn in for a second term Thursday
after her party appeared to have
swept every legislative seat in the first
elections the island nation held as a
republic since casting off the British
monarchy.
Mottley’s Barbados Labor Party
seemed to have secured all 30 seats in
the House of Assembly, the lower house
of the island’s Parliament, giving the
island’s first female leader a second
term as prime minister. A majority of 16
seats was required for a win.
Mottley achieved the same sweep
when her party won elections in 2018.
“The people of this nation have spoken
with one voice, decisively, unanimously
and clearly,” she said in her celebratory
speech before dawn on Thursday
to a large crowd clad in red shirts.
Mottley, who pledged to focus on
issues including financial security,
nutrition, renewable energy projects
and housing, said the island faces serious
challenges in the next 10 to 15
years.
She noted that Barbados, an island
of more than 300,000 people that has
reported more than 37,000 confirmed
infections of the new coronavirus, is
still fighting the pandemic that has battered
the economy and tourism sector
of the one of the Caribbean’s wealthier
nations.
“We have done well as a nation, but
we are still not out of the woods,” she
said after her swearing-in.
Mottley said she would announce
her Cabinet on Monday and declined
to share details about any upcoming
changes to government positions.
“I’m going to sleep on all of that this
weekend,” she said. “In life I’ve learned
that you don’t do things in extreme
happiness or extreme anger, and that
what is required is reflection and a little
rest.”
Leaders from around the region
hailed the election results, including
Carla Natalie Barnett, the secretary
general of the Caribbean Community,
a 15-member regional trade bloc, who
congratulated Mottley on her “resounding
victory.”
Mottley’s main opponent, Verla De
Peiza of the Democratic Labor Party,
conceded defeat.
“We’ve lost our democracy without
intending it,” she told local media and
called the voter turnout “depressive.”
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, UFCW
Twitter: @sappelbaum
www.rwdsu.org
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