The battle lines are drawn over a lawsuit that could reshape
agriculture in New York state. Civil rights advocates are suing to give
farm workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively. The
state’s largest farm lobby has signed on in opposition, after Gov.
Andrew Cuomo would not. The case centers on an incident at a dairy farm
in Lewis County.
New York’s constitution guarantees almost every worker the right to organize, but a state law excludes agricultural workers.
"They
are the one group who is not able to seek relief in the event that
their right to organize is violated," says Erin Beth Harrist, lead
counsel with the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The NYCLU is suing to change the law on behalf of two upstate advocacy groups, the Workers' Center of Central New York and the Worker Justice Center of New York, and
the state’s estimated 60,000 farmworkers. Harrist said the exclusion is
unconstitutional and based on outdated policy from the Jim Crow era of
the 1930s.
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Source: WRVO Public Media (via The Empire Report)
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