Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming, issued the following statement regarding a newly-released study from Washington State University and the Center for Latino Leadership examining the impact of Washington state’s new farm overtime law on farmworkers
“This study affirms the concerns we had even before this misguided law was passed: that it would ultimately harm not only Washington’s family farms, but the very people it was intended to help, the farmworkers who make up an important part of our farming community.
“We’ve heard from countless farmworkers for years now that they are not bringing in as much income as they used to, and it’s putting a devastating strain on their families. This study confirms with data and farmworker voices what we feared would happen. The findings deserve serious attention and reveal that the need for lawmakers in Olympia to address the injustice they’ve caused is greater than ever.
“While the new overtime law was sold as a measure to benefit farmworkers, we see that the exact opposite is happening. The overtime threshold is leading to reduced hours and actually taking opportunity away from local farmworkers, while increasing farms’ need for additional workers, including foreign guest workers, to tend and harvest the food our farms grow.
“State legislators need to act immediately to correct the problem they’ve caused, and to do that, they must begin listening to the farmworkers directly affected by this law and not the extremist groups that pushed this harmful change. This report lets farmworkers speak for themselves and does not rely on activist groups claiming to speak for them. Many farmworkers in this study specified solutions they want to see–will Olympia listen to them?
“Farmworkers in the study are calling for a higher overtime threshold and greater seasonal flexibility to restore their opportunity for greater income. These are changes Save Family Farming has been calling for and will continue to promote in order to help farmworkers, who are such a critical part of our Washington state farming community.
“We’re grateful for this important work and research to bring farmworkers’ experiences directly into this discussion. It is our hope that Washington’s leaders will take it seriously before much more harm is caused to farmworkers and the farms they work for, many of which are struggling to survive.
“Without immediate change in Olympia, we fear a not-to-distant future where farmworkers are harmed not just by the reduced income we see the overtime law is already causing, but by something even worse–the widespread loss of jobs the farmworker community could suffer as Washington farms continue to go out of business.”