Colorado State University forms labor issues group in response to new bill

A farm worker listening session Saturday, originally scheduled to be held at Hirakata Farms and since moved to Colorado State University’s Arkansas Valley Research Center at 27901 County Road 21 in Rocky Ford to accommodate more people, is seeking input on one of the hottest topics in Colorado agriculture right now: the implementation of a new worker rights act.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture also added a drop-in session for ag employers who have comments or questions. That session will be hosted first, from 3 to 5:30 p.m., with the main listening session for ag workers scheduled to run from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Specialists from Colorado State University hosted a webinar recently to outline the rulemaking process and discuss research already conducted on the issue. All stakeholders were urged to reach out and let CSU know how the university can provide further assistance.

CSU has formed a special labor issues working group, which continues to expand and bring in additional expertise from across multiple academic disciplines, according to Dawn Thilmany, a professor and outreach coordinator in food systems economics.

“We know this is a hot topic for a lot of people,” she said.

Small- to medium-sized produce farms and dairies are the two agricultural sectors that are expected to feel the biggest impact from the new labor law, according to Ali Hill, an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics.

She and Boulder County ag agent Adrian Card compiled and summarized the results of several existing studies in an attempt to better understand the law’s implications.

Farms with the equivalent of eight full-time workers or less were previously exempt from minimum wage law, but that is set to change, Hill said. Overtime pay will also be universally required for anyone working in excess of 12 hours a day or 40 hours a week.

The smallest farms, those making less than $350,000 in gross sales, are most likely to have workers who put in the longest hours, sometimes as high as 80 hours a week, she said.

A full policy briefing on their findings is posted online at foodsystems.colostate.edu.

A few other states — California, New York and Washington — have also recently updated wage and labor policies. However, the measures are so recent there’s not much good data available for evaluating the impact, Hill said.

Anecdotal evidence suggests more farms in California have shifted to the federal H-2A program as a result of overtime restrictions.

“If they have a lot of workers currently working overtime, they will need to hire more people to fill that gap, and in California they are already reporting that they can’t find the workers they need,” Hill said.

Limitations on funding prevented the research team from doing actual field interviews, but Hill is hopeful the degree of interest in the topic will lead to more comprehensive studies in the future.

“My personal interest would be to have more extensive information about the wages employers pay and how many hours their employees work, and I would like to compare that to what the workers say,” she noted. “I’d also like to know what (workers) think employers could do to make them want to work more hours, such as benefits or job security. I think those are some important things that could be gleaned from a worker survey.”

CSU occupational epidemiologist Lorann Stallones has done work in the field that included conducting interviews with ag workers firsthand.

She summarized the main concerns she’s heard them express.

“These workers view themselves as the primary financial providers, and they don’t want to take time off of work,” she said, noting that on-farm safety was a high priority.

Migrant workers “did report difficulties accessing appropriate medical care and often postponed taking care of problems until they returned home,” she added.

Other concerns included having to work during bad weather, such as excess heat, cold, high winds or rain; access to toilets; rotation of job tasks to reduce physical strain; awkward positions or uncomfortable equipment handle lengths; difficulty communicating with employers, either because of language barriers or organizational structures such as labor contractors; and the need for more training and better or more appropriate clothing and tools.

Dairy workers often get routine safety training on the farm, but with seasonal and migrant workers, it’s more difficult and more expensive to do, Stallones noted.

She added that workers’ ability to have a voice in public policy was often diminished by the transient nature of their jobs. Not all worker concerns are directly addressed by the new legislation, although higher wages — if that is actually the result — could potentially help to improve housing, transportation and similar issues, she said.

Alexis Kennedy, who joined CSU’s new masters of public policy program last year from the University of Colorado-Denver, hasn’t focused specifically on agriculture to this point but did study the rulemaking process extensively as it relates to the banking sector.

Her research has shown that public comments and stakeholder input has considerable influence on how laws are implemented, as long as it is in line with the initial spirit and intent of the legislation. Not surprisingly, the voices with the most power in a given situation — in her experience, typically industry groups — can exert a disproportionate influence on the final rules.

Produce farmers have been very vocal about why the new work rules could end up putting many of them out of business.

In public statements, the Colorado Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association described it as potentially “the final nail in the coffin for Colorado produce growers.” According to various CFVGA grower-members, the provisions would reduce overall wages for employees, make the state’s farms less competitive in attracting and retaining already scarce labor, and reduce the flexibility necessary to address the seasonality and unpredictability of agriculture production for both workers and their employers.

“A smaller, organic farm owner told me her employees, all local, work about 2,000 hours a year, which is an average of 40 hours per week, but employees may work up to 72 hours per week during certain weeks in the spring and summer and far less than 40 hours per week in the off-season,” said Marilyn Bay Drake, the group’s executive director. “All growers are concerned that if overtime requirements are too restrictive, they will not be able to find the labor they need, even if they can afford to pay the overtime.”