The Oregon Board of Agriculture has endorsed reforming the state’s agricultural overtime law, which critics of the state hope will add weight to their arguments at the upcoming legislative session.

The Oregon Board of Agriculture has endorsed reforming the state’s farmworker overtime wage law, which the statute’s critics hope will bolster their case in the upcoming legislative session.

Farmworkers had historically been exempt from time-and-a-half wages for overtime hours, but in 2022 lawmakers passed a bill phasing out the exemption.

During its most recent quarterly meeting last month, the Board of Ag unanimously approved a resolution which “strongly recommends a collaborative approach to amending” that bill, citing the “unique demands of peak harvest seasons.”

The resolution says any change should ensure “equitable compensation to workers,” but notes that similar overtime laws in Washington and California “have impacted the available hours of work for agricultural workers and constrained production capacity.”

Overhaul sought

While the advisory board has no binding effect on government policy, critics of the 2022 overtime bill think the resolution will add weight to their arguments for overhauling the law in 2025.

“I think the call to try to fix this is one that’s growing,” said Jeff Stone, executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurseries.

The OAN and other agricultural organizations will push for a proposal to freeze the weekly threshold for agricultural overtime at 48 hours and raise it to 55 hours for 12 weeks during peak seasonal labor demand, he said.

In 2023 and 2024, farmers had to pay employees time-and-a-half wages if they worked more than 55 hours per week, but that threshold drops to 48 hours in 2025 and 2026.

In 2027, farmworkers must be paid overtime wages if they work more than 40 weekly hours, just like other workers.

Though the Board of Ag’s resolution is carefully worded and doesn’t include specific policy suggestions, Stone said that’s understandable given its “delicate” position advising the state Department of Agriculture.

“It recognizes that it has to be the Legislature that resolves it,” he said. “It was an appropriate way for them to address the issue.”

The board’s resolution is a “positive step” that will hopefully lend credence to the case for reform, though “it’s hard to know how the politics will play out,” said Jenny Dresler, lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“You need to show evidence the policy is not working as intended,” she said. “There needs to be something done to ensure the viability of small and mid-sized farms.”

Worker impact

In a discussion of overtime policy before the resolution vote, farmers said the decreasing weekly threshold is expected to reduce workers’ take-home income and cause other disruptions.

To prevent thousands of dollars in added labor expenses, Molly Pearmine McCargar said she’ll have to provide migrant crews with time off from harvesting cherries at her family’s farm near Gervais, Ore.

“They don’t want to take days off. They’d prefer to just keep working,” McCargar said, noting that the operation has also scaled back what it grows. “My concern is if I have to cut the hours, they will just stay in California.”

Hiring more workers to reduce the weekly hours of individuals isn’t a viable option for many farmers, since having more than 25 employees subjects companies to additional state regulations — but beyond that, the labor just isn’t available, according to critics.

“If I could hire the people, I would do it,” said Bobbi Harrold Frost, whose family owns a dairy near Creswell, Ore. “That workforce is just not out there right now.”

Even if it were possible, such a solution would not help workers facing reduced hours and paychecks, said Josh Zielinski, a board member and manager at Alpha Nursery near Salem, Ore.

“These employees aren’t used to working on a 40-hour budget,” he said. “That’s my biggest concern.”

Overtime support

Supporters of the 2022 overtime bill argued that working long hours without a higher wage rate leads to overexertion and workplace injuries, as well as workers ignoring health problems until they get worse.

Farmworkers were originally exempted from higher overtime wages due to discrimination against employees of Mexican descent, said Nargess Shadbeh, farmworker director for the Oregon Law Center.

“The denial of overtime pay to agricultural workers is not rational,” she said.

Revising the 2022 bill would be inappropriate before it’s been fully implemented, Shadbeh said. “We don’t have enough data to make a meaningful assessment of the impact on farmworkers at this time.”