When Oregon instituted its agricultural overtime law it required an analysis of how farmworkers would be affected by the requirement – something woefully lacking in Washington state’s ag overtime law. The verdict is in, and it is not looking good for overtime proponents.

The recently released analysis shows farmworkers earning less overall as overtime thresholds become lower. Oregon’s data also highlights California’s farmworkers, often held up in Washington state’s legislature as the ideal, earn less compared to their counterparts in other parts of the country. Oregon State’s Dr. Tim Delbridge wrote, “We find that agricultural overtime will negatively affect farm profitability and, perhaps surprisingly, will decrease the weekly earnings of some farm workers.”

The analysis reviewed anonymized wages for farmworkers working in cherry production, dairy production, and nursery production between January 2022 and November 2024. In all three ag sectors, Delbridge and Dr. Jeff Reimer tracked the peak working hours of farmworkers as well as tracking the effects of overtime on overall income of the workers, the differing hours trends for each sector of ag, and the estimated percentage difference in labor costs overtime would represent in each sector.

As has been noted in Washington state since the full implementation of the overtime law, as the threshold for overtime lowered, overall earnings for farmworkers decreased as farm managers adjusted for the increase in labor costs. Delbridge wrote, “a small percentage increase in labor costs can have a large impact on the profitability (and financial sustainability) of farm businesses,” noting that a 10 percent increase in cherry labor costs represented a 30 percent reduction in net cherry production income in 2022.

Proponents of the overtime law in Washington state championed the legislation as a way for farmworkers to earn additional wages. However, neither the research nor boots-on-the-ground experience has borne that promise out. According to OSU’s report, overtime has done the opposite of providing more wage income. 

Although workers that receive overtime pay of 1.5 times their base wage rate are likely to see an increase in their average hourly wage, it does not necessarily follow that the total earnings will be higher for individual workers under the new rules. With agricultural overtime laws in place, farm managers have a strong incentive to organize work schedules in a way that minimizes overtime costs, and this may include reducing the hours per week that an employee works.

In fact, of the sample of employee data provided in the report by Delbridge and Reimer, all employees experienced an overall decrease in weekly wages and hours between 2022 and 2023. Oregon began implementing overtime in 2023 with a 55-hour threshold.

Similar experiences have been reported in Washington state and in virtually every other state in which overtime has been implemented. In fact, farmworkers interviewed in Washington state last summer unanimously called for more flexibility in the state’s overtime law. Their stories are available on video. It is time for Washington state legislators to start listening to their constituents.

Washington state’s farmworker overtime legislation is broken but there is still time to fix it. With seasonal work picking up, now is the perfect opportunity for our farmworkers to have their voices heard and amplified. Rather than having our farmworkers misrepresented by a miniscule farmworker union, now is the time to talk to the vast population of farmworkers throughout the state who want their hours returned to the flexibility they enjoyed before full overtime implementation.