Current Events > Maine governor vetoes bill that would allow farm workers to unionize

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://whdh.com/news/maine-governor-vetoes-bill-to-allow-farm-workers-to-unionize/

Maines Democratic governor has vetoed a bill that would have given farm workers in the state the right to unionize, citing the possibility of heaping new costs on an already struggling agriculture sector.

The Maine Legislature passed the proposal, which called for people working in agriculture to be able to organize for the purposes of collectively bargaining for wages, hours, working conditions and benefits.

But Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the proposal Friday with a message that said she could not subject our farmers to a complicated new set of laws that would require them to hire lawyers just to understand.

Maine is the countrys sole producer of wild blueberries, as well as a major producer of potatoes and maple syrup. The largely rural state also has a significant dairy industry and small and midsize farms dedicated to livestock and specialty crops.

Those farms are already struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, droughts and worker shortages, Mills said. And new costs associated with the union would likely be passed on to consumers, she said.

While this bill is well intended, I fear its unintended consequence would discourage the growth of farms in Maine, Mills wrote in her veto message.

The Maine AFL-CIO said the bill would protect farm workers from abuses such as wage theft and sexual harassment. The federations executive director said the group was greatly dismayed that Mills vetoed the bill.

Farmworkers provide the most essential service to our communities by growing, picking and processing the food we eat every day. They perform back breaking labor and are among the most exploited workers in our nation, said Matt Schlobohm, the executive director of the Maine AFL-CIO.

Antifar posted...

But Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the proposal Friday with a message that said she could not subject our farmers to a complicated new set of laws that would require them to hire lawyers just to understand.

Jesus fuck

"Our poor podunk country folk are just too dumb. This is for their own good, you see?"

Would be nice to see an article like, even once in a while, that suggests the US is still a functioning country

Treating workers like shit what else is new

Absurd wording. The right to unionize isn't something you simply grant with a law. It's immutable that a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Lol? This is 100% in line with the Democratic party. They don't want workers unionizing any more than Republicans do. That's why we need a progressive party to actually get some traction.

Sounds like time for a strike then for the farmworkers in the region.

Looks like they're gonna get 4 more years of Paul LePage.

Doe posted...

Absurd wording. The right to unionize isn't something you simply grant with a law. It's immutable that a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow.

Unfortunately you can thank Roosevelt for that not being the case in the US.

E: Fucked up, way off on timeline.

She literally called them stupid lmao

Doe posted...

The right to unionize isn't something you simply grant with a law.

This. You don't need permission to start a trade union.
Something's fucky here.

Questionmarktarius posted...

This. You don't need permission to start a trade union.
Something's fucky here.

The New Deal straight-up omitted farm workers

https://documentedny.com/2021/10/13/12-workers-make-history-forming-new-yorks-first-farmworkers-union/

The fight to unionize farmworkers who are often excluded from labor laws that apply to other workers goes back to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt. This law, also called the Wagner Act, allowed workers to unionize and prevented employers from retaliating against workers who joined a union with the exception of agricultural or domestic workers. At the time, many of these workers were Black and Roosevelt had compromised on the law with the Southern Democrats, who wanted to continue discriminating against and oppressing people of color.

In 1937, New York passed the New York State Employment Relations Act (SERA), modeled off the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act only covered laborers in industries which affected interstate commerce, so SERA was designed to include more workers in the state. However, SERA kept the part of the law which excluded farmworkers.

A year later, Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into law. The FLSA provided a minimum wage and overtime, but farmworkers were left out yet again due to Southern lobbying. In 1966, the FLSA was amended to include some of the provisions for farmworkers, but workers were still not granted overtime pay and workers on small farms were not guaranteed minimum wage.

Questionmarktarius posted...

This. You don't need permission to start a trade union.
Something's fucky here.

I'm guessing that there is something in the state's legal code that prevents farm worker's from unionizing, which I agree, is bullshit.
EDIT NVM the above post explains it. Fuck southern lobbyists and fuck Roosevelt and the rest of the government for giving in to them.

Take that ya dumb farmers. How dumb can you be!?

Admittedly it sounds like the provision would actually be challengeable under violations of both the 1st and 14th Amendments, but of course no one has actually done it yet (still!) and there's no way this Supreme Court overturns it.

U.S. continues to only care about the wealthy. Big surprise.

So upon further consideration, this directly stems from southern desire to keep fucking over black people, who made up the majority of it's farm laborers in the south and they were willing to fuck over farm workers in the entire country to do it.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

No she said that their finances are more important than workers' well-being.

That's the funny thing about collectively organizing.

You don't need anyone's permission to do it. And there's nothing they can do once you've done it.

ScazarMeltex posted...

So upon further consideration, this directly stems from southern desire to keep fucking over black people, who made up the majority of it's farm laborers in the south and they were willing to fuck over farm workers in the entire country to do it.

So many of our freedoms have been taken away because black people wanted to do it too. Pretty much every gun regulation in American history was targeted to make things difficult for black people to own guns and while it affects white people to some degree the main point was that they get to fuck over black people.