Well, how's that for unfair. In the U.S., you get overtime pay if you've worked more than 40 hours per week or eight hours a day - and if you're not a farmworker. Farmworkers can easily work 12-13 hour days, six to seven days a week, without any overtime pay. A bill just passed to change that, and Schwartzenegger vetoed it.
In vetoing the measure, Schwarzenegger cited the fragile economy and said that extending overtime protections could put farms out of business, or result in lower paychecks for agricultural workers because farmers would hire more people and cut hours to avoid paying overtime.
What a jerk. I'm sorry but if a farm can't pay its workers fairly, I don't see that it deserves to be in business.
The bill's author was, of course, none other than Dean Florez. Here's how he responded:
Florez said the Republican governor sided "with a labor practice derived from the segregationist South," and that the veto means it is "acceptable to treat one class of people differently from all others."
"The governor had a chance to make history," said Florez, the son of farmworkers. "He had a chance to wipe a 70-year-old shame off the books of California. Instead, he has decided to side with the shameful."
I quite agree. |
