Take Action to Stop AB 1066
Legislators returned to Sacramento on August 1 for their last month of the legislative session. Just prior to the summer recess Assembly-member Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) took the language from AB 2757, which was defeated, and placed it into another one of her bills, AB 1066. AB 1066 contains the exact language of AB 2757. As currently written, AB 1066 will:
- Phase in over a four-year period, a requirement that overtime pay be paid to farm workers after 8 hours of work in a day or 40 hours in a week;
- Require workers to take one day off every seven days;
- Delays the implementation of the new overtime rules for small employers by two years and
- Gives the Governor the authority to postpone a scheduled overtime pay increase if employment in California is declining.
Tell your legislators how this legislation will hurt both farmers and farm workers. The higher cost of providing overtime pay will force farmers to cut employee work hours to control labor costs and farm worker compensation will decline. The application of requirements for workers to not work one day every seven days to agriculture will force seasonal agricultural workers to miss as many as four days of pay in a month of peak harvest season.
AB 1066 was placed on the Senate Appropriations suspense file and must be taken up by Friday, August 12. If the bill reaches the Senate floor and passes, it will return to the Assembly for a vote. It is important that we continue to put pressure on our elected officials. Contact your elected officials today!