Virginia Democrats are hoping to get rid of some exceptions to the state’s minimum wage laws. Those exceptions include farm laborers who can be paid as little as the federal minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, while the state’s minimum wage is $12 an hour.
Arlington area Democratic Delegate Adele McClure may not have a large number of farms in her district, but she said the state isn’t doing enough to protect those who work in the Commonwealth’s farms.
“When we passed the Virginia Minimum Wage Act, we left behind the hard-working people who put food on all our tables,” McClure said during the second reading of her bill Tuesday.
The effort would require workers on small farms and temporary foreign workers to be paid at least at the state’s minimum wage. She called the state’s existing minimum wage carve outs a relic of Jim Crow.
But Rockingham County Republican Delegate Tony Wilt, who’s district carries the title of top dairy producing locality in the Commonwealth, expressed concerns about how the increase may impact farm businesses.
“Were there any farmers that the delegate talked to, were they in favor of her legislation?” Wilt asked.
McClure said she’d heard from at least one farmer who said they were paying the minimum wage, and keeping these exemptions was making finding labor more difficult.
“These perspectives and these voices of small farmers who support this measure are drowned out by fear mongering or not supported by labor data,” she said.
Democrats advanced the bill to its third reading, scheduled for Wednesday. But any hopes of it getting the signature of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin may be slim.
According to the Virginia Mercury, Youngkin told a room full of small business owners only hours later that he wouldn’t sign any new minimum wage laws if they came to his desk.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
