Colorado House Republicans were joined by 11 Democrats in a sharply divided party to pass a bill Thursday that would reduce minimum overtime wages for agricultural workers in the state.
The proposal sparked hours of debate and fierce opposition from many Democrats. It passed narrowly on a 33-32 vote.
Under current Colorado law, overtime wages for farmworkers kick in after either 48 hours a week for most farm work and 56 hours during the most intense periods of seasonal work — rules stemming from a 2021 bill that established the state’s first overtime laws for the agriculture industry.
The bill would bump up the overtime threshold to 56 hours for all farmworkers, regardless of the season and type of work. That’s a much higher threshold than the 40-hour-a-week overtime threshold enjoyed by workers across all other economic sectors.
This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
Backers of the bill said the stronger overtime provisions currently in place were unsustainable for farmers and harmful to the farmworkers they were intended to protect.
“The current overtime regulations have resulted in workers losing hours and therefore losing money,” said Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a Denver Democrat who sponsored the bill. “Agricultural employers simply cannot afford to pay overtime at 40 hours.”
Supporters also argued that the highly seasonal nature of agricultural work, which can entail very long, intense workdays during short harvest windows, justifies the exemption from standard worker protections. Farmers, they said, would simply switch to less labor-intensive crops or hire multiple crews to work in shifts in order to avoid paying time-and-a-half overtime wages, ultimately leaving workers worse off.
“Just because an employee’s hours are limited at a single farm or ranch doesn’t mean they are working less,” said Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Democrat from the San Luis Valley who sponsored the bill in the House. “We have seen many that are working multiple farms or jobs, foregoing time off and still not earning overtime.”
The bill faced particularly strong opposition from much of the Democratic caucus, members of which had attempted to pass a competing bill earlier in the session that would have expanded farmworker overtime protections. That bill failed in committee. During the House debate, many Democrats appeared outraged at the idea of undermining protections for what they called some of the hardest working and most vulnerable workers in the state.
“A 40-hour work week was established to signal to employers that working any more than that comes at the detriment to the workers’ health and safety,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Democrat from Glenwood Springs. “If a worker is to work over 40 hours a week, then they must be compensated fairly for the risk.”
Gov. Jared Polis intends to sign the bill when it comes to his desk.
“(It) will provide important relief for Colorado farmers who are facing higher costs every day and help farmworkers who want to work more hours get those hours,” a spokesperson for Polis said in an emailed statement. “This bill will set a reasonable overtime limit for agricultural workers who want to earn more money and more hours without diminishing worker protections.”
Agricultural work has long been exempted from many federal protections that cover the rest of the workforce. Colorado is one of only five states, along with California, New York, Washington and Oregon, with laws on the books giving farm workers basic rights, which vary from state to state but include things like overtime, the right to organize and required rest breaks.
The bill’s supporters argued those protections are perhaps too generous and could threaten the economic viability of the agriculture industry, especially at a time farmers are already facing major economic headwinds like historically low commodity pricing, increasing prices for fuel, tariffs and drought.
“The bill is not anti-worker, it’s actually just pro-reality,” said Rep. Chris Richardson, a Republican from Elbert County, shortly before voting to pass the proposal. “We need flexibility. We need to be able to adjust … in order to keep farms and ranches operational and to have jobs for people to seek out.”
But while those challenges are real, Victor Rubio Rivera, deputy national political director with the United Farm Workers Union, doesn’t see a justification.
“All of these things don’t have to do with their labor costs,” Rubio Rivera said. “Putting all of that on the backs of farmworkers doesn’t square with what farmers are actually struggling with.”
The overtime rollbacks passed just weeks after the House unanimously voted for a resolution to honor agricultural labor on Farmworkers Day (recently renamed from Cesar Chavez Day), an irony that critics on the left repeatedly pointed out. It also came on the heels of other disappointments at the Capitol for the labor rights movement.
“It’s getting drier and hotter in Colorado, and we can’t pass protections for workers that are working in extreme temperatures?” said Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, referring to another worker protection bill that was recently gutted in a committee hearing. “But we can cut their pay?”
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS, and The Colorado Sun, with support from news outlets throughout the state. Startup funding for the Alliance was provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.