Friday, March 18, 2022
CapitalPress.com 3
Oregon farmers consider overtime adjustments
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
As a dairy farmer with
fewer than 25 employees,
Derrick Josi hypothetically
shouldn’t worry about the
phase-out of Oregon’s agri-
cultural overtime exemp-
tion recently approved by
lawmakers.
Josi’s overtime expenses
would be fully paid by
refundable tax credits under
House Bill 4002, which
passed the state Legislature
and now awaits Gov. Kate
Brown’s signature.
Up to $55 million a year
could be spent on such tax
credits under the bill, but
Josi doesn’t expect that to
cover the requests from
farmers seeking to offset
higher overtime payments.
Politically, it’s also
unlikely the tax credits will
be a permanent fixture, said
Josi, who farms in Tilla-
mook. “The first time there’s
a budget crunch, that’s the
first thing they’ll cut.”
With that in mind, Josi
is thinking of ways to cope
with a 40-hour weekly over-
time threshold for workers.
Those plans don’t include
paying
time-and-a-half
overtime wages, which the
dairy couldn’t afford.
If possible, Josi said he
will hire more workers so
that overtime hours aren’t
necessary — until then,
he’d expect to work more
himself.
Employee schedules will
likely be reduced from about
60 hours to 36 hours per
week, to leave a four-hour
buffer against the threshold,
he said.
Workers will likely
be given an hourly wage
increase to mitigate the
income loss, though at
the expense of such cur-
rent perks as meat, fuel and
housing stipends, Josi said.
Across the industry, it’s
also likely workers will
switch between farms to
compensate for the limits on
weekly hours imposed by
employers, he said.
“My employees are going
to be hurt by it, I’m going
to be hurt by it,” he said of
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Derrick Josi visits with his Jersey dairy cows in Tillamook, Ore. Josi said he’s making plans to change workers’ hours
in anticipation of Oregon lawmakers voting to end the state’s agricultural overtime exemption.
the overtime bill. “There’s
definitely negative conse-
quences for the employer
and employees.”
The bill was discussed
during several hours-long
committee hearings and
floor debates during the
2022 legislative session, but
the essence of the argument
was simple.
Supporters
claimed
the agricultural overtime
exemption is rooted in rac-
ism and denies farm work-
ers their constitutional right
to equal protection under the
law.
Critics countered that
farmers receive prices set
by global markets and
can’t afford to a steep hike
in labor expenses, which
would force them to mecha-
nize, change crops or go out
of business.
A coalition of state farm
organizations has requested
that Gov. Kate Brown veto
HB 4002 but farmers con-
tacted by Capital Press
aren’t holding their breath
for that outcome.
Instead, they’re consid-
ering how to adjust their
operations over the next
five years, when the over-
time threshold is incremen-
tally lowered to 40 hours per
week.
“This is definitely going
to affect the hand-harvest
of blueberries. There is no
way we can afford to hand-
pick once the overtime is
implemented,” said Anne
Krahmer-Steinkamp, a Wil-
lamette Valley blueberry
grower.
Blueberries can be har-
vested with mechanical
pickers, but the process is
tough on fruit, which has
traditionally been sold into
the frozen market.
However, growers are able
to earn higher prices for fresh
fruit and the demand for fro-
zen berries isn’t unlimited.
“The
frozen
mar-
ket’s been in the gut-
ter the past 10 years,” said
Krahmer-Steinkamp.
Newer picking machines
geared for the fresh market
handle fruit more delicately,
but cost up to $400,000
apiece. To meet her har-
vest demand, Krahmer-
Steinkamp will need four or
five such pickers — a major
capital outlay in an uncertain
market.
Fruit buyers will also
need to be convinced that
the new equipment won’t
adversely affect quality at the
retail level, which would hurt
demand.
“You need to get them
onboard with that, she said.
“You don’t want to put gar-
bage on the market.”
K r a h m e r- S t e i n k a m p
said she expects to have a
plan in place by the time
HB 4002 is fully imple-
mented. She’s reconsid-
ering whether to replace
older fields and expand
her blueberry acreage, or
whether to get out of the
industry altogether.
“I can definitely make
more money doing some-
thing else than I’m doing
now,” she said.
Labor-intensive crops
will probably be abandoned
by Oregon farmers, reduc-
ing the state’s agricultural
diversity — while requiring
those items to be imported
from countries with more
lax labor laws, according
to a vegetable grower who
didn’t want to be named.
The overtime policy
approved by lawmakers
is at odds with the state
government’s support of
restricting carbon emis-
sions to prevent climate
change, the farmer said.
“You’re going to perpetuate
that problem of increasing
your food miles.”
Mike Townsend, a farmer
and fruit processor in Fair-
view, said the overtime law’s
impact will be particularly
harsh on growers who rely
on foreign guest workers.
Under the federal H-2A
program, employers must
already provide those work-
ers with transportation and
housing while paying them
substantially above the min-
imum wage, he said.
“How do you expect a
farmer to survive in a world
market with these increased
costs?” Townsend said.
Oregon’s nursery industry
competes against other states
that still have the overtime
exemption and fewer other
labor restrictions, said Pete
Brentano, a nursery operator
near St. Paul.
Automation
requires
scale, so the brunt of the
new overtime law will come
down on those who are
unable to mechanize, he said.
“Most small nurseries can’t
afford to do that.”
Just since last autumn’s
wine harvest, Pape Machin-
ery has sold eight Pellenc
grape harvesters in Oregon
— the same number sold in
the entire previous year, said
Cody Starnes, territory sales
manager for the company.
Demand is likely to rise as
the state’s agricultural over-
time exemption is phased
out, he said.
“It’s been a hot button.
We’ve been hearing more
and more about that,” Starnes
said. “I think we’re going to
see more and more interest.”
The machines can be
more readily adjusted to fit
a vineyard’s trellis system,
which equates to less dam-
age to the grapes, he said.
They also incorporate func-
tions to remove stems and
blow away leaves.
“With past machines, they
were a lot more crude with
how they handled the fruit,”
Starnes said. “They were a
lot less gentle.”
At a cost of up to $480,000
per unit, the Pellenc system
pays for itself in labor sav-
ings within a year in vine-
yards with 90 acres or more,
he said.
Oregon’s average vine-
yard size is less than 30 acres.
To
accommodate
machine harvest, vineyards
will need to make changes
such as replacing wooden
stakes with metal ones, said
Alex Sokol Blosser, a wine-
maker near Dayton, Ore.
The end of the overtime
exemption was viewed as
“an inevitability” in the
state’s wine industry, but
labor shortages have already
been spurring more automa-
tion, he said.
Change is uncomfort-
able but the industry must
be willing to invest in resil-
ience, Sokol Blosser said.
“This is the decision you’re
left with as a winemaker:
Do you want to pick your
grapes or not?”
Health board backs off regulating farms
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The Washington State
Board of Health will pro-
pose holding pet and live-
stock owners responsible for
keeping animal waste from
becoming a health hazard
or nuisance, but has backed
away from regulating com-
mercial livestock operations.
The board was briefed
March 9 on a rule that staff
members plan to propose
this month or next. The rule
will authorize local health
officials to investigate com-
plaints about animal waste
fouling water or someone
else’s property.
Unlike earlier proposals,
the rule won’t try to comple-
ment laws that apply to dair-
ies, feedlots and other con-
fined livestock operations
and that are enforced by the
state Department of Agri-
culture and Department of
Ecology.
“It doesn’t step on the
toes of other state agencies
that have been given author-
ity by the Legislature to be
more involved with those
large operations,” board
Chairman Keith Grellner
said. “I think we’re in a
really, really good spot.”
The new rule will update
an old regulation that mostly
concerns requiring horse
stables inside cities to be
regularly cleaned.
For several years, the
board’s staff flirted with
amplifying the rule to
restrict where manure can be
stored. A staff report in 2018
on rewriting the rule focused
on the environmental impact
of dairies.
The detail, scope and
tone of previous proposals
alarmed dairies, ranchers,
feedlots and horse owners.
Board policy adviser
Stuart Glasoe said that he
doubts the board has the
authority to regulate dair-
ies, horse stables, dog
kennels and other large
operations.
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