New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters earlier this week her office is continuing to review a recommendation that would reduce the overtime threshold for farmworkers, a move critics claim would devastate the state’s agricultural community.

Last month, the New York Department of Labor Farm Laborers’ Wage Board, in a 2-1 vote, approved a 10-year plan to slash the maximum number of hours farmworkers could work before receiving overtime from 60 to 40.

Hochul must still sign off on that, and after meeting with her cabinet in Albany, she said she still had time to hear from all sides on the matter. She noted she had a “very productive” meeting with the New York State Farm Bureau and farmers about their needs.

The Farm Bureau and farmers oppose the recommendation because, in part, they say it will deter workers from coming to the state. Brian Reeves, president of the New York State Vegetable Growers Association, said many of the workers on his farm come from Mexico on seasonal visas and want to work as many hours as they can during the growing season.

Other states, Reeves said, do not have even the current 60-hour weekly cap New York has.

“They’re not happy about it, but they can live with it,” said Reeves, who spoke at a press conference Tuesday in Albany led by Republicans in the state Assembly. “If it gets reduced further, they’re not going to come. I’m not going to have that well-trained workforce. I’m gonna have to start from scratch, and who knows what that looks like.”

The overtime provision is a requirement from the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act, which the state legislature passed in 2019. The bill’s requirements included the state setting an overtime threshold for farmworkers. Workers would be paid at time-and-a-half for any hours they get work over that threshold.

The Wage Board’s recommendation is to reduce the threshold by four hours a week every two years so that the 40-hour rule would not take effect until 2032.

Even with a 10-year phase-in, critics of the measure say it would be damaging to an industry where 98% of the nearly 33,500 farms are family-owned and generate $5.8 billion in revenue.

“Nature does not care about a 40-hour workweek,” said Jeff Williams, the Farm Bureau’s director of public policy, during the GOP Assembly press conference. “Farmers work with nature every single day to put a crop in and then get a crop out, and that doesn’t work on a 40-hour workweek.”

Should Hochul decide to accept the Wage Board’s recommendation, she will likely look to incorporate other measures with it to soften the blow for what she called an “essential industry” for New York.

For instance, she told reporters she wants to see the federal government approve more agricultural visas that would allow farmers to hire more temporary workers. On a state level, farmers could end up getting tax breaks to help mitigate any financial impact caused by the new overtime requirement.

“It is not final, but we’re getting close,” she said.

This article was originally posted on NY farmers call on Hochul to not implement 40-hour OT threshold for laborers