Dillon: Oregon Family Farms Can’t Absorb The Removal Of The Overtime Exemption

According to the Oregon Farm Bureau, removal of the current overtime exemption would be devastating to the farming community across the entire state. According to Dave Dillon, Executive Vice President at OFB, farm costs have increased significantly over the past ten years, but farm income has not kept pace. He noted while drought, sever weather, market access and the pandemic have all made farming more challenging, labor remains the number one annual cost for farm and ranch families.

“Imposing an overtime requirement on agriculture, it imposes a public sector cost where there is no mechanism in the private sector to make up that cost, to meet that cost.  You know, if you’re picking apples, the farmer does not get more for the apple that was picked in the 41^st or the 45^th hour of the week.”

According to the OFB, nearly 70% of the economic value of crop production in Oregon is from specialty crops, which rely on farm labor more than other types of crop production. And Dillon pointed out a recent Farm Bureau survey indicates 90% of producers across the state say they cannot bear the additional costs that would come with the removal of the overtime exemption.

“I don’t know how much more clear you can get, about how damaging this would be to families all across this state who are already struggling, who are already providing the most basic needs that society has, that the public loves.  Every survey that you can see will say Oregonians love farm and ranch families, they honor them, they trust them, they want them to succeed, and we really can’t afford to have public policy makers divorce themselves from those two realities and impose something that’s going to really hurt the family agriculture that I think everybody in the state loves and values.”

Data from the Farm Labor Survey for Oregon and Washington indicate that average hourly wage rates across all hired farmworkers in 2021 were between $16.87 and $17.44 per hour; meaning overtime pay would move up to $27 per hour.

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