Oregon Farm Bureau Looks At How Ag OT Hurts Industry, Workers

Growers and producers where Ag overtime has been implemented will tell you how much the new law is hurting the industry in general, both the operators as well as employees. 

Austin McClister with the Oregon Farm Bureau says to fully understand the impact, the general population needs to understand why the farming industry was exempt from overtime wages.  One of the main reasons, seasonality.

"The other reason for that is that farmers do not have a lot of choice in setting the prices for their crops," McClister noted.  "We say price takers, not price makers. And so when you look at that as a business and you say, and you're adding labor costs on top for farmers, that's coming out of their bottom line.  They're taking a hit on every increase in a labor cost because you're not going to charge a dollar more for your corn like you're charging for a Big Mac at McDonald's.” 

McClister said not only does this additional pay requirements hurt the farmers, but it also hurts the workers.

"You have workers that are having to take two jobs because the farmer will stop at that 48-hour mark because they simply cannot afford to pay time and a half during harvest, and they have to bring in a new worker to fill that spot, or they don't even do the work. They just have to cut it off. We've had examples of fruit rotten in fields because of this kind of stuff, whether it's labor shortages or not being able to pay.”

McClister said many farm workers report making $100-$200 less per paycheck because of the overtime requirements.

While it doesn’t appear anything will change this legislative session, McClister said there are several ideas being tossed about by the farming community, from a window during harvest that’s exempt from overtime requirements, to holding the threshold at 48 hours, or even allowing workers to opt out of overtime.

The state is expected to get the results of studies looking at the impact overtime has had on the Oregon farming community by the end of this year.

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