AUGUSTA - The Maine House and Senate voted to advance a bill Wednesday sponsored by Rep. Thom Harnett, D-Gardiner, to give Maine farm workers the right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. The House voted in favor of the measure 76-63. The Senate voted 18-17.
"Unlike almost every working person in Maine, farm workers can still be fired for just talking about their working and living conditions and bringing those concerns to their employers," said Harnett. "The right to organize is fundamental to improving labor conditions, and farm workers need that basic right in order to negotiate with their employers."
As amended, LD 151 specifies the mutual obligation of agricultural workers and their employers to bargain and establishes procedures for determining bargaining conditions and appeals.
"Farm workers, who travel thousands of miles from their homes to feed us, deserve nothing less than the legal protections afforded to all other working people," said Harnett. "We have the chance to do better as a Legislature, as a people and as a state. Passing this bill could be the first step in making that a reality."
LD 151 faces further votes in the House and Senate before heading to the governor's desk.
Harnett is serving his second term in the Maine House and represents the Town of Farmingdale and City of Gardiner. He is the House chair of the Judiciary Committee. In his previous career, Harnett worked as a legal services attorney for migrant, seasonal and year-round farm workers in New York State from 1980-1989, and in 1989 he joined the Maine Office of the Attorney General and worked on behalf of the farm workers at DeCoster Egg Farms in Turner.
Contact:
Jackie Merrill [Harnett], c. 812-1111