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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.

 


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Here’s a novel way to increase housing, kill off farming to gain the real estate!


7

Government meddling screws up everything that it touches. Wages should be determined by Free Enterprise, not by incompetent Disinformation Bureaucrats.


48

Aren’t many of these workers seasonal H2-a type if not illegal ? Either way much of their wages are often sent back to Mexico. Skilled tradespeople in Mexico earn around $35 per day down in mainland where most Americans would be surprised how much basic goods and services cost, so farm work even at 125 per day is still an attractive option. In the construction industry here quite a few of the skilled Hispanic workers I know pulling $30-40 per hour are setting themselves up with ranchettes and other retirement setups to make the move back down south of the border after working here doing the trades work nobody wants to do anymore-


10

Wages should be raised when it becomes difficult to find qualified people willing to do the work in an industry. I haven’t heard there’s a shortage of farm labor.

What qualifies the SBCBS to set wages in agriculture, they can’t control spending in their own industry, government.


42

How about the Supervisors fund a task force to prosecute growers who hire all the illegals? I’d have no problem with $26/hr labor if workers were paying taxes and working here legally. We all know the reason why farmers hire illegals is that they work cheap and aren’t paying taxes.


11

Been there done that. And these farmers who makes billions in profits off things like strawberries, lobbied local political figures and disbanded units in SLO county and SB county decades ago for doing; just that. And what type of group of people do you think own these enterprises; I can tell you what skin color they aren’t, and I can tell you it might be egg shelled color.


Read into it, it’s common knowledge. Personally, I eat local, grow my own, and don’t eat out of season like some kind of monster, I don’t buy disgusting pasteurized milk, and if I do buy milk or cream, it comes from farms up in Humboldt and I Pay A lot for it because I Care about Ethics and Quality. To complain about cost and then buy food from extorted third world countries with the shipping costs to here; is insanity. Really, the idea of being forced to a grocery store in general is a damn shame. Vs, my local farmers market or farm.


-18

As usual, Andy Caldwell exaggerates the potential burden on farmers. I doubt many will go bankrupt if wages are raised. However, this is not good timing. Many SM Valley farmers are rebounding from the heavy rains that caused significant flooding two years ago. Hopefully there can be some compromise. $20 an hour seems doable, in my opinion.


-49

Setting minimum wages higher for farm labor decreases the ability of the agriculture industry to compete with imported products. It will be a said day when we rely on foreign grown food to sustain our population. What are workers paid in other countries doing the same work, this is what our farmers are competing with in our markets. Unless Santa Barbra County is willing to ban the sale of imported agriculture products, they should not be monkeying with an industry that feeds our nation.


48

As I said, it’s probably not a good time, but don’t be fooled, I doubt the SM valley will stop growing strawberries and vegetables because of a wage increase. I worked on my father’s land on the mesa for 30 years and, though he worked hard and was never as rich as many of the farmers today, he was never close to bankruptcy and there were some very lean years in the 1970’s and 1980’s.


-30

Yeah, Andy won’t ever talk about Local Farmers who aren’t a bunch of Welfare babies hiring illegals asking for GoV handouts who then run a finite toxic industrial farm, No, Andy would never interview small sustainable local farms who run a profit, charge a tiny bit more, make it organic, and don’t extort labor or hire illegal work and then pay that illegal work Peanuts.


That would involve journalism and ethics.


-14

Hard working people for sure but $26 an hour… welcome to the $6 apple coming to a grocer near you….


56

Most likely a symbolic bill some lawmaker drafted to satisfy their core ideolog constituents. It never had a chance , and it would never work, but it’s a gesture meant to virtue signal. A big waste of taxpayers money


55

Charge our farmers more is what not to do. It’s not their fault fuel is $5, milk is $4, and taxes are through the roof in this state. Our farmers feed us and provide all of these honest jobs. Without them there will be no workers, or food grown in the State. I noticed my mixed veggies came from China the other day, that’s not right. Stop “fixing” things by throwing more money at the people. People are broke with an iPhone in their hands so let’s pay everyone twice as much as the job is worth?


60

Farmers are big scammers, feasting on taxpayer subsidies. They are are number one employer of illegals. Let’s start prosecuting/fining/incarcerating farmers who knowlingly hire millions of illegals.


-27

There wouldn’t be any subsidies, if government would have stayed out of the way.


Tell you what, go buy some 500 acres and make it a profitable farm. Don’t forget, that everything you will need to buy to till the soil, plant the seed, acquire tractors and devices, plenty of fuel for the 24 hour machine operations, trucks to haul it to the storage, trucks to haul it to market, and heavy insurance for everything in case nothing grows.


You’ll be needing a house, transportation, and food for yourself, health insurance for you and your dozens if not hundreds of workers (Obama-care won’t cut it BTW), very high wages for your workers, government forms up the wazoo (and do NOT forget to dot that “T” and cross that “I”), farm inspectors, health inspectors, welfare inspectors, the FDA, the IRS, the Teamsters, the UFW, the California Farmworkers Federation, county regulations, state regulations. Also, don’t be surprised if the federal government says you can’t use those 500 acres to grow anything, because of a single and highly endangered red legged frog, ghost shrimp, purple amole, San Joaquin Kit Fox, Grizzly bear, or democrat with common sense.


31

I can list my families 50 acre dry farmed organic farm surrounded by a bunch of psychopaths, and we’ve always made a profit by doing it right and don’t extort illegals, pay crazy wages to locals, and have a coveted product without limp D handouts So, Messkit, I call BS.


-10

50 acres? Now do the 500–without trucks, heavy hired labor, and minimal family members doing any picking. You will next have to deal with national and international markets (not local Mom & Pop stores or farmers markets) and the ensuing heavy regulations, fees, taxes, and licensing, and all else I included above.


You cannot compare a small family farm, with massive co-ops that deal with millions of dollars of investments annually, and barely make enough to do it again next growing season.


7

See how holding people accountable gets you down votes lol.


-12
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