New York Farmworkers Get Labor Rights but Legal Battle Looms (2)

Farmworkers in New York now have rights to overtime pay and to unionize, but full implementation of a state law that guaranteed new workplace protections faces renewed opposition from farm operators fearful of increased labor costs.

The law took effect Jan. 1, but a state judge granted a request from two farm groups to halt enforcement of some of its provisions as a legal challenge plays out.

Passage of the law last year marked the culmination of a decades-long political struggle in the state over whether to grant workplace rights to tens of thousands of farmworkers, who weren’t guaranteed the ...