“Today’s decision by the Farm Laborers Wage Board demonstrates how completely tone-deaf Albany bureaucrats are to the needs of the agriculture industry. Despite hours of testimony, multiple financial reports and real-world accounts of the devastating impacts a lower overtime threshold will bring, the state Wage Board’s decision has forced the state’s farmers closer to the brink of ruin. Roughly 70 percent of those who participated in public hearings voiced their support for keeping the 60-hour threshold. But, by a vote of 2-to-1, the voices of farmers and farmworkers were irresponsibly ignored today. 

Throughout our history, farming has always been among New York’s most important and essential industries. Today, New York’s short-sighted, Majority-driven Wage Board has committed to regulate a cornerstone industry right out of existence.”