Agricultural Exceptionalism: A History of Discrimination against Farmworkers in Labor Laws Results in Poverty for Farmworkers

Jose is a 33-year-old farmworker from Puerto Rico who started working in agriculture at the age of 17. Throughout the years, Jose has traveled up and down the East Coast working in apple, peach, corn, lettuce, basil, celery, blackberry, pumpkin, broccoli, sugarcane, and strawberry crops in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and New Jersey. A typical work day for Jose starts at 5:00 am. He usually works around 47 hours a week.

In a recent job in Virginia, Jose was paid by a piece rate based on how much he could pick. When he was unable to harvest enough to make enough with the piece rate, he was paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Jose says that he feels this system is “a trap.” He explains that in order to really make a lot more than the minimum wage, you really have to sacrifice your body. 

Jose has never seen a portable toilet in the fields. He also explained that the employers used to pay the Puerto Rican farmworkers for their transportation back to Puerto Rico after the season, but now the farmworkers have to pay for their trips home as well as their transportation from Puerto Rico to the farms. Jose says that makes it more difficult for workers to come since they have significantly higher costs.

Jose loves doing farm work and plans on doing it for many years. He says it’s the employers and the harsh conditions they create that make the work very difficult. That’s why there are not many people doing farm work anymore. Jose has witnessed undocumented workers treated differently from documented workers and forced to work in harsher conditions. He believes that immigration reform will improve the living and working conditions for all farmworkers.

 

The low-wages and poor working conditions that Jose describes result in part from the discriminatory treatment of farmworkers in U.S. labor laws. During the New Deal Era, President Roosevelt struck a bargain with Southern Democrats: they would support worker rights legislation so long as their farmworkers (and other predominantly African-American workers, such as domestic workers) were exempt. Thus, Congress excluded farmworkers from the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), the main federal law that protects workers who join and organize labor unions, and from the federal minimum wage and overtime protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (farmworker children were also excluded from the child labor protections during times when they were not legally required to be in school). Not until 1966 did Congress require employers to pay farmworkers the federal minimum wage. To this day, farmworkers remain excluded from federal overtime requirements, the NLRA, many states’ workers’ compensation laws, and many occupational health and safety protections. The protections for child farmworkers are also weaker than the child labor protections in all other industries.

The labor law exclusions result in poor working conditions and low wage rates for farmworkers who struggle to make ends meet. Farmworker wages are among the lowest in the country: poverty among farmworkers is roughly double that of all wage and salary employees. Additionally, farm work consistently ranks as one of the most dangerous occupations, yet only 31% of farmworkers have health insurance. 

Current proposals in Congress to increase the minimum wage would benefit farmworkers, helping to lift them out of poverty. The proposals in the House and Senate would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 by 2016 and would subsequently increase the minimum wage yearly to keep up with inflation. This increase would make all the difference for someone like Ray, a 60-year-old farmworker from Florida, who says that the wages where he was picking potatoes in North Carolina are just too low. Ray said that he is willing to take any course and do any job, so long as he can make $10.00 an hour. Ray describes farm work as hard work, saying “I’ve got love for any farmworkers, they earn everything that they make – Spanish, Black, or White.”

In addition to fair wages, farmworkers deserve equal protection under the law. Like other workers in equally demanding jobs, they should receive overtime pay, workers’ compensation insurance, and have the right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.

Jose is a 33-year-old farmworker from Puerto Rico who started working in agriculture at the age of 17. Throughout the years, Jose has traveled up and down the East Coast working in apple, peach, corn, lettuce, basil, celery, blackberry, pumpkin, broccoli, sugarcane, and strawberry crops in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and New Jersey. A typical work day for Jose starts at 5:00 am. He usually works around 47 hours a week.

In a recent job in Virginia, Jose was paid by a piece rate based on how much he could pick. When he was unable to harvest enough to make enough with the piece rate, he was paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Jose says that he feels this system is “a trap.” He explains that in order to really make a lot more than the minimum wage, you really have to sacrifice your body. 

Jose has never seen a portable toilet in the fields. He also explained that the employers used to pay the Puerto Rican farmworkers for their transportation back to Puerto Rico after the season, but now the farmworkers have to pay for their trips home as well as their transportation from Puerto Rico to the farms. Jose says that makes it more difficult for workers to come since they have significantly higher costs.

Jose loves doing farm work and plans on doing it for many years. He says it’s the employers and the harsh conditions they create that make the work very difficult. That’s why there are not many people doing farm work anymore. Jose has witnessed undocumented workers treated differently from documented workers and forced to work in harsher conditions. He believes that immigration reform will improve the living and working conditions for all farmworkers.

 

The low-wages and poor working conditions that Jose describes result in part from the discriminatory treatment of farmworkers in U.S. labor laws. During the New Deal Era, President Roosevelt struck a bargain with Southern Democrats: they would support worker rights legislation so long as their farmworkers (and other predominantly African-American workers, such as domestic workers) were exempt. Thus, Congress excluded farmworkers from the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), the main federal law that protects workers who join and organize labor unions, and from the federal minimum wage and overtime protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (farmworker children were also excluded from the child labor protections during times when they were not legally required to be in school). Not until 1966 did Congress require employers to pay farmworkers the federal minimum wage. To this day, farmworkers remain excluded from federal overtime requirements, the NLRA, many states’ workers’ compensation laws, and many occupational health and safety protections. The protections for child farmworkers are also weaker than the child labor protections in all other industries.

The labor law exclusions result in poor working conditions and low wage rates for farmworkers who struggle to make ends meet. Farmworker wages are among the lowest in the country: poverty among farmworkers is roughly double that of all wage and salary employees. Additionally, farm work consistently ranks as one of the most dangerous occupations, yet only 31% of farmworkers have health insurance. 

Current proposals in Congress to increase the minimum wage would benefit farmworkers, helping to lift them out of poverty. The proposals in the House and Senate would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 by 2016 and would subsequently increase the minimum wage yearly to keep up with inflation. This increase would make all the difference for someone like Ray, a 60-year-old farmworker from Florida, who says that the wages where he was picking potatoes in North Carolina are just too low. Ray said that he is willing to take any course and do any job, so long as he can make $10.00 an hour. Ray describes farm work as hard work, saying “I’ve got love for any farmworkers, they earn everything that they make – Spanish, Black, or White.”

In addition to fair wages, farmworkers deserve equal protection under the law. Like other workers in equally demanding jobs, they should receive overtime pay, workers’ compensation insurance, and have the right to organize and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.