Santa Barbara County considering $26 hour minimum wage for farmworkers

September 7, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors plans on Tuesday to take the first step to raise the minimum wage for farmworkers in the county to $26 an hour.

Farmworkers in Santa Barbara County currently make an average of $16.50 an hour, while minimum wage in California rose to $16 an hour in Jan. 2024. Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy and Mixteco Indígena Community Organizing Project requested the increase in minimum wage for farmworkers, which they note are primarily Latino.

“Farmworkers have been the lowest paid workers for decades,” Effie Sklavenitis wrote the board. “It is imperative that wage and hourly policies reflect the significance of their contributions, in line with those from other essential industries.”

In response to their request, Santa Barbara County supervisors Das Williams and Joan Hartmann are slated to ask the board on Tuesday to create an advisory committee to look into the proposed increase in minimum wage, before it is put on a future agenda.

Agriculture is Santa Barbara County’s number one economic driver bringing in over $2 billion a year, with the wineries also drawing tourists to the area. At number two, the hospitality industry also generates over $2 billion a year.

Andy Caldwell, the executive director of COLAB in Santa Barbara County, says that county farmers cannot just raise their rates as fast-food operators did after a state mandated $20-hour minimum wage.

“Farmers in every sector of our economy have told me in no uncertain terms that a $26-hour minimum wage for farmworkers would create their immediate and certain bankruptcy and the certain layoff of their entire workforce,” Caldwell said. “The truth is strawberry producers have already been losing money for the past two years and so have wine grape and flower growers. This would be the last straw.”

“The market prices have not kept up with the costs of inflation for growers, especially in California, as our farmers already have some of the highest labor, water, land, and fuel costs in the country, if not the world,” Caldwell added.