Last week, Maine took a historic step forward by extending the state’s minimum wage to include farmworkers. For too long, the people who grow and harvest the food we eat have been excluded from some of the most basic labor protections. By signing this bill into law, Governor Mills acknowledged that farmworkers deserve the same economic dignity as other workers. This victory is the result of years of hard work by legislators, advocates, farmers, and farmworkers, and it is a moment worth celebrating.
However, it is only a partial victory. Yesterday, the Governor vetoed a bill, LD 588, that would have protected farmworkers from retaliation when they speak up about unsafe working conditions or unfair treatment. This kind of concerted activity is a right held by nearly all other private sector workers in this country and is just one of many rights farmworkers are still denied. These exclusions are rooted in laws passed during the Jim Crow era, when the majority of Black workers were employed in agriculture and domestic labor. Maine had a chance to right that historic wrong, and the Governor chose not to.
The need for this protection couldn’t be clearer. Today, many farmworkers labor under the threat not just of injury or exploitation, but of being detained and deported by federal ICE agents. In an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, telling workers they do not deserve the protected right to discuss their working conditions is a failure of leadership.
While we celebrate the farmworker minimum wage and lament the Governor’s veto of the concerted activity bill, we also recognize these are pieces of a long, ongoing fight for economic and racial justice in Maine. MECEP will continue to partner with workers, advocates, and lawmakers who seek to build a fairer economy where all people have dignity, respect, and basic economic rights.
