BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 1, 2023
The systemic exploitation of farmworkers — who are disproportionately people of color — hurts us all. Agricultural workers in Maine have historically been excluded from labor laws through exemptions at both the state and federal levels. After a scaled down version of LD 398, “An Act to Make Agricultural Workers and Other Related Workers Employees under the Wage and Hour Laws,” was enacted by the Maine Legislature, the governor was lobbied by the Maine Potato Board and their allies to veto the bill. Maine is one of 19 states that does not apply its minimum wage laws to most farmworkers. Farmworkers would have gotten crumbs from LD 398, but even those were considered too much for the people who do backbreaking work to put food on our tables. ~ Ariel Ricci and Morgan Pottle Urquhart, Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous, and Tribal Populations; Juana Rodriguez Vazquez, Mano en Mano