Assemblyman John Lemondes (R,C,I-Lafayette), a longtime proponent against lowering the overtime threshold for farm workers and laborers, is anguished by the revelation that the Department of Labor has adopted a proposal to reduce the overtime cap from 60 hours to 40 hours. In a state where the majority of legislators making these decisions have never worked or lived in farming country, Lemondes calls the decision a ‘great injustice’ to the farmers who maintain the land and perform the work.

“It’s infuriating that the livelihoods and economic freedoms of agriculture workers is now upended by a bunch of city-based legislators who have likely never stepped foot on a farm in their lives,” Lemondes said. “The disservice done to farmers, who are now going to be even further economically disadvantaged, is a great injustice, and the worst example of aggressive, uninformed state oversight I have ever seen. Agriculture is one of this state’s number-one industries, and they’ve just hamstrung its generationally-defined workers to the point where profits will be minimal, if there are any.”

Proponents of the measure have claimed the state’s tax credit and subsidies will be able to offset the potential early loss in significant revenue. Lemondes knows it won’t do good long-term.

“A subsidy does not make up for the bottom line the way the state argues it does. As a farmer myself, I question whether I’ll be able to support my employees in a way that I can manage and that the state will now dictate. Ignoring farm owners throughout this process for the sake of looking good at cocktail parties with other elites has made the Democrat party irreparably guilty of ignorance in my eyes,” Lemondes concluded.