By Dino Giacomazzi
Giacomazzi Dairy, Hanford, CA
Read his Blog http://dinogiacomazzi.com/

Article written for the July issue of
Agribusiness Dairyman


"It appears to me that the dairy industry is at war. We are at war with radical environmentalists who want to regulate cow farts and let sardines rule the earth. At war with vegan terrorists who torture animals on video to portray us as Hitler with a milk mustache. At war with Marxist journalists who portray modern agriculture as the source of all societal ills, creating a dilemma for us omnivores. At war with unions, regulators, politicians, inspectors, monopolistic processors, oligarchic retailers, weather reporters, food burning cars, market manipulators, protein concentrators, hippies, lions, tigers, bears, and Al Gore! Oh my!

Why the heck are we constantly at war with each other? Why is it every time we show up to a battle with an outside group we come fighting with each other? We do this with processors over make allowances and environmentalists over air regulations. They show up organized, with a plan, and a message. We show up prepared to lose. I don’t blame policymakers for making the easy choice.

With all this adversity it seems like this would be a good time to come together. Let’s cease to be Western, Midwestern or Northeastern dairymen, lets not align ourselves as dairymen from ABC or XYZ co-op, let’s erase the lines between the dairymen of the red trade group and the blue one. Let’s just be Dairymen! Ok, great, we are all just dairymen, now what? How about we talk about Milk Market Management." Continue reading from Dino's Blog

Once again, emotion has overridden sensible business economics in Sacramento, where the Legislature has passed a bill that would require farmers to pay overtime to workers after eight hours a day or 40 hours a week.

Proponents of Senate Bill 1121 say it's only fair that field workers fall under the same overtime regulations that apply to people working in air-conditioned offices and factories. Many hearken back to the 1960s and even earlier, when there were very few protections for farmworkers -- from the heat, from pesticide drift and from other risks.

While harvesting crops can be hot work, many of the harshest conditions have been improved -- through state regulations. We've supported most of those new regulations. But we don't support SB 1121 because:

It fails to recognize the seasonal nature of much farm work. California labor laws, dating to 1941, acknowledged that field jobs are particularly intense during the weeks and months of harvest. In 1976, state law was updated to provide overtime to farmworkers after 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week, making California the only state with rules on the number of hours worked per day. Two states provide for overtime after 60 hours per week. Continue reading