Alex Padilla: “I rise to speak in support of the Fairness for Farmworkers Act, which I introduced today. Throughout the ongoing…”

“I rise to speak in support of the Fairness for Farmworkers Act, which I introduced today. Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, farmworkers continued to keep our country going. This was especially true in California--the agricultural heart of the Nation. California is the most successful State in agricultural production and has the largest population of farmworkers. In fact, more than one-third of our country's vegetables and two-thirds of fruits and nuts come from California. During a time of incredible hardship, farmworkers put food on the tables of millions of Americans despite working in extreme conditions and facing deep-rooted inequities in the workforce. The time to address these inequities is now. While the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act established Federal standards for minimum wage and overtime pay, the law excluded millions of domestic and agricultural workers, who were overwhelmingly people of color. In 2016, California recognized the need to provide farmworkers with overtime protections. The California overtime law, which ensures farmworkers have an equal right to overtime pay, is a model for this Federal bill. Farmworkers in California and across the Nation deserve an end to discrimination in labor laws. As we work to rebuild from the pandemic, we must also undo the discriminatory exclusion of farmworkers by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act.…”