On February 22nd, New York State’s Department of Labor (NYSDOL) announced that it officially adopted controversial new farm labor overtime regulations. Last year, New York State’s Farm Laborers Wage Board voted to lower the overtime threshold for farm workers from 60 hours to 40 hours, and the state Labor Commissioner subsequently ordered that board’s recommendation be adopted. NYSDOL’s announcement finalizes the drastic change, commencing a phased-in reduction in the overtime pay threshold beginning on January 1, 2024, with the threshold set at 56 hours. The lowering process will continue with the overtime threshold limit being reduced by 4 hours every other year until reaching 40 hours in 2032.
This official, misguided policy change caps years of advocacy on the proposed regulations, with the wage board holding several public hearings on the issue where witnesses delivered hours of testimony overwhelmingly opposed to any changes in the overtime threshold.
NFIB in New York had also joined with business community allies and the New York State Association of Counties to call on Governor Kathy Hochul and Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon to reject the farm labor wage board’s recommendation to lower the farmworker overtime threshold. Throughout the year, NFIB drove home the message that small farms and the agricultural community, like all small businesses, were battling record inflation, high gas prices, labor shortages, and supply chain disruptions, and these challenges were pushing farms to the brink. To change the overtime threshold on top of all this made no economic sense and could not be justified.
In reaction to NYSDOL’s announcement last week, NFIB State Director Ashley Ranslow said, “The Department of Labor’s announcement was predictable in light of Commissioner Reardon’s acceptance of the Wage Board’s recommendations last September, but the news is jarring, nonetheless. The testimony and advocacy from farmers, NFIB, and allied groups was united and emphatic that any overtime threshold lower than 60 hours will have severe negative consequences on the state’s agriculture industry and our local food supply. Now is simply not the time to increase costs for family farms, which are already facing the highest costs this industry has ever seen. This policy decision by New York State government is an indefensible failure of leadership and should have been prevented.”
