A bill that would have instituted new overtime rules, unemployment benefits and allowed farm workers to organize into collective-bargaining units died in the New York Senate's Agriculture Committee today.
On a 6-3 vote, the committee voted down the measure, known by opponents as the "Farm Death Bill."
Opponents said the bill would have increased costs for New York's farmers by $200 million per year.
"It would have killed agriculture in New York State, and that's the state's number one industry," said Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer, who sits on the committee and voted against the bill.
After passage in the Assembly last year, the bill was looking like it would make it to a floor vote in the Senate when Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, a Democrat who chairs the agriculture committee, lobbied to have the bill reviewed by his committee before letting the full Senate vote on it.
In a statement today, Aubertine said:
"The committee came to its conclusion following a lengthy, open process which included participation from all sides of the issue. The committee worked diligently to cut through the rhetoric, and aggressively pursued the facts of this matter. Toward that end, the committee voted based on the merits of this bill and its impact on farm workers, farmers and consumers; not partisan attacks, half-truths, rhetoric or political polling."
Ranzenhofer said that articles by Batavia Daily News staff writer Tom Rivers, which he collected in a book, helped educate legislative leaders about farm labor and dispel a lot of misinformation being spread by supporters of the bill.
"Tom was able to bring reality check to what some of the more sensational special interest people were saying," Ranzenhofer said.
