Apples, Overtime and the Campaign
Fall is the most beautiful season here in Upstate America, so let’s talk a bit about apples. I recently visited Golden Harvest Farms in Kinderhook to write an article for The Wall Street Journal about changes to New York’s farm overtime laws. (Read the whole article here!)
Golden Harvest has grown from a small apple-growing operation when Doug Grout’s grandfather opened it after World War II, to a multipronged business that includes a retail stand, cider press, distillery, tasting room and barbecue restaurant. Grout said he sees a cloudier future for the business due to the new overtime regulation that will require him to increasingly pay more overtime to the farmworkers who pick his apples in the coming years, raising one of his primary costs.
State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon signed an order last month that will gradually lower the threshold at which farmworkers must be paid the overtime rate of time-and-a-half, from 60 hours—where it was set in 2020—to 40 hours in 2032. The threshold will fall in four-hour increments starting in 2024.
Agriculture groups including New York’s apple industry lobbied against the change, arguing that it could force some farmers to close and sell their land. Labor groups and Democratic officials said farms should be able to cope because the change’s full effect won’t be felt for a decade and a tax credit enacted this year will help make up for increased overtime costs.
Golden Harvest hires as many as 60 workers for the harvest season and provides housing in a building on-site. Workers’ hours are capped at 60, Grout said, because at the market price for apples, it wouldn’t make financial sense to pay the overtime wage rate. He half-joked that perhaps he could grow houses instead by turning to residential development on his land, and said some apples might stay on trees because at time-and-a-half, the income from their sale wouldn’t cover the cost to pick them.
Worker groups said changing the threshold was a simple matter of fairness. Luis Jimenez, who works at a dairy farm near Geneseo, N.Y., and is president of the labor group Alianza Agricola, called the overtime change long overdue. If anything, he said, it should be phased in sooner, as he needs more money to pay for rising costs of food and medical care.
“I’ve already been here for nearly 20 years. Why should I have to wait another 10?” Jimenez, 38, told me.
ON THE TRAIL: Things are getting busy in the New York gubernatorial campaign. Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin had their first and only debate of the election cycle on Tuesday night, in which the Democratic governor criticized her Republican opponent’s support for Donald Trump and touted accomplishments from her 14 months in office. Zeldin focused on elevated crime in the state, and he said he would repeal laws that ended cash bail for most misdemeanor and non-violent felony offenses.
National figures are coming to the Empire State, a sign that things are more competitive than expected in a state that Joe Biden carried by 20 points. The president praised Hochul during a trip to the Syracuse area on Thursday. Govs. Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin are stumping for Zeldin.
Republican Governors Association Chairman Doug Ducey, of Arizona, featured Zeldin in a private call Monday in which he urged party donors to support his closer-than-expected campaign. Zeldin told donors to give to his campaign, or to two Super PACs that have been attacking Hochul.
Now there’s word that the New York State Board of Elections is investigating a Democratic complaint alleging improper coordination between Zeldin’s campaign and those super PACs, a person familiar with the matter said, confirming an initial report in The New York Times. Zeldin’s campaign says it’s a political distraction, while Democrats say it shows Zeldin has contempt for election laws.
THE QUESTION: New York is the second largest producer of apples in the country. Which state comes in first?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Harry Wilson came closest to winning statewide office as a Republican in post-Pataki New York with his 2010 challenge to Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.