[Buckeye McFrog]

The little nagging logician inside me has to ask....

If workers in other industries get OT after 8 hours, why shouldn’t ag workers? Seems kind of arbitrary.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I don't know what the exact figures are now, but a couple of years ago the amount of the price of a head of lettuce that went to a field worker was about 4 cents. If you were to even double this, the difference would be literally undetectable to the consumer --- and this overtime bit isn't going to double wages.

The main determinant of prices in the fruit and vegetable business is still supply and demand. Have a fabulous, ginormous crop and you lose money because the glut on the market makes the price skid toward zero. Widespread crop failure, on the other hand, means that producers with something to ship to market can make out like bank robbers.

[Cold Heart]

Caught ya, you didn’t read the article:)

[Squantos]

Should be left up to employer ..... if employee doesn’t like the job, hours, pay etc don’t work there.

List of Calipornia businesses I will attempt to not purchase from ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_companies

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Buckeye McFrog :" If workers in other industries get OT after 8 hours, why shouldn’t ag workers? Seems kind of arbitrary."

Manufacturing requires raw product which is kept on schedule, and the schedule is defined and definite.
Agricultural crops are ripe and optimum and need to be harvested, right at that time!
There are too many variables affecting agriculture crops: sunlight, rain, cold , heat, frost, fertilizer, irrigation,insect invasions, mechanical breakdowns, crop failures,
seed germination rates, flooding, insufficient ground water, fertilizer salts build up, timely transportation to market, etc., etc.
It is said that farmers is the oldest occupation , and they are all gamblers, as the odds and nature are against them.
The harvest occurs when the crop is ready and optimum, and no one gets paid until the crop is sold above the farmers cost; that is why there are so many small farm bankruptcies !

[Scrambler Bob]

If workers in other industries get OT after 8 hours, why shouldn’t ag workers? Seems kind of arbitrary.
= = =

And the ag workers should get umemployment in the off-season, too?

[Mrs. Don-o]

They underlying premise of this article is pretty dubious. Wages for providers of goods and services which are shipped interstate do not constitute "taxes" on those interstate buyers. Period.

Anybody who thought about this for just 2 sustained minutes would realize that.

Note that I am not commenting one way or the other on the propriety of the State of California mandating those overtime wages. That's a separate issue. I'm just saying that paying people overtime wages when they work overtime, is not inherently a taxation-without-representation on consumers. Market forces are still at play, and still the overwhelming determinants of economic behavior.

Higher total incomes for agricultural workers may speed up the robotization of farmwork, though. It's coming.