On January 28th, 2022, the New York Farm Labor Wage Board held their fourth hearing of 2022 via online Zoom meeting. This hearing had to be scheduled in addition to the original three hearings because of the overwhelming volume of testimony from farm employers, employees, industry experts, and labor advocates. At the end of the hearing the board held a brief business meeting which included the passage of three motions. Each motion was proposed by board chairperson, Brenda McDuffie, and seconded by Denis Hughes, representative of the union AFL-CIO. David Fisher, president of the New York Farm Bureau opposed all three motions. The three motions were each passed with the support of McDuffie and Hughes, over the continued opposition of Fisher.
Three Motions Passed in a Split Decision
Motion 1 was essentially to lower the overtime threshold for New York farm laborers to 40 hours per week. Motion 2 was to have this change phase in over 10 years. Motion 3 essentially laid out a schedule to have the threshold go down 4 hours every other year. Chairperson McDuffie laid out the schedule as follows:
- January 1, 2024, threshold moves to 56 hours
- January 1, 2026, threshold moves to 52 hours
- January 1, 2028, threshold moves to 48 hours
- January 1, 2030, threshold moves to 44 hours
- January 1, 2032, threshold moves to 40 hours
Next Steps
Staff from the NYS Department of Labor will summarize the vast amount of testimony and information from the hearings, and the motions of the wage board, into a draft final report. Wage board members will have an opportunity to review and comment on the report as it is prepared, then they will vote to approve or disapprove the final report. Next, the report will be published and there will be a 15-day public comment period. The report will then be submitted to the NYS Commissioner of Labor. The commissioner can follow the wage board recommendations or modify them, but ultimately the commissioner will issue a wage order which will have regulatory authority.
