To: UFW

Sign the pledge saying farm workers deserve overtime

I pledge to stand with farm workers and do all I can to support the UFW's campaign to obtain fair overtime for all farm workers in the United States. Excluding farm workers from overtime after eight hours was wrong in 1938. It's wrong now. This deplorable caste system must end...the change started in California, which provides over half of America's fresh produce. It’s time for this change to apply to the entire US.

Why is this important?

The farm worker movement is determined to address Jim Crow era discrimination against farm workers like the UFW’s huge 2016 victory in California that ensures the implementation of more inclusive regulations for farm workers starting in 2019. In California, overtime law for farm workers ensures farm workers will have an equal right to overtime pay and continues the process of reducing discrimination in employment laws against agricultural workers. The change started in California it is time to set this standard for the entire nation.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was signed excluding farm workers from its overtime protections and this can no longer be justified or tolerated. It was wrong in 1938 and it is wrong now. A new proposal should be introduced in Congress shortly that would right this wrong and should be passed immediately.
The UFW’s proposal would remedy the discriminatory denial of overtime pay and the minimum wage to all farm workers under current law. Farm workers deserve basic minimum wage and overtime protections like any other US worker. Workers in agriculture would be entitled to time-and-a-half pay for working more than 40 hours in a week. It would phase in overtime pay over a period of 4 years beginning in 2019; for employers with 25 or fewer employees, the phase-in will be delayed by three additional years. Itthat will be introduced in congress in the near future mirrors California’s phase-in requirement to ensure equity. This legislation eliminates most of the exemptions to the minimum wage for agricultural employers; although the family farm exemption would continue.
We all want to feel good about the food we purchase and consume, and the continuing discrimination in employment laws against farm workers – the people who produce our food – contribute to a stain on our food system that must be stopped.

Will you support farm workers? By signing the pledge you are committing to hold your representatives accountable to address this unjust exclusion of agricultural workers from the minimum wage and overtime pay.