On January 1, 2020 New York farms will have to pay overtime wages (1.5 times the ‘regular rate of pay’) for nearly all employees that work over 60 hours a week. Researchers and extension educators from Cornell University Agricultural Workforce Development, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cooperative Extension and PRO-DAIRY,  have developed several tools to help New York farms manage through these changes.

Our spreadsheet tool is designed to help farm managers estimate how much overtime they would have to pay under their current employee work schedules. The tool can also be used to estimate costs of new work schedules. To use the tool, you will need to know current compensation levels and work schedules. Worksheets are provided for collecting or calculating that information in advance, if it is not readily available.

A new extension bulletin on “Adapting Your Labor Strategies to New York’s Revised Farm Labor Employment Laws” discusses the pro and cons of various management strategies that farm may consider in response to the new overtime rules. The guide does not make recommendations, but details the positive and negative implications of changes to work schedules, employee policies and farm

Please visit https://agworkforce.cals.cornell.edu/overtime to download these tools. You can contact Jennifer Ifft (jifft@cornell.edu) or Richard Stup (rstup@cornell.edu) for more information. 

In addition we have three Info Sessions on the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act with NYS Department of Labor Ag Specialists coming up to have your farm labor questions answered in WNY. If you didn't make it to the Labor Roadshow the week of Nov 18th, this is your chance to come and learn about the new labor laws that will apply to all farms as of January 1, 2020. (See details below).