The Harsh Daily Reality for Dairy Farm Workers

Now more than ever, struggling dairy farms have come to increasingly rely on immigrant labor. As with agriculture as a whole, immigrant workers now make up more than half of dairy farms' employees. But lacking legal protections, those laborers, both documented and undocumented, are often subjected to inhumane and dangerous working conditions.

Dairy workers are exposed to heavy farming equipment, potentially dangerous livestock, fumes from manure lagoons, long hours, and little pay — often under conditions that would be completely illegal in any other industry, as detailed in a great 2009 article in High Country News.  You see, the National Labor Relations Act, the backbone of American labor law that protects unionized and unionizing workers, doesn't apply to agricultural laborers. The result is that dairy workers can't unionize without their employers' say-so, meaning that it hardly ever happens. Without union representation and legal recourse, workers facing unfair conditions can't take any action.

It gets worse. Dairy workers, like all agricultural workers, are also exempt from overtime pay laws in the Fair Labor Standards Act. Just about the only wage protection they have is a guarantee of meeting the hourly minimum wage, but even that is very difficult to enforce owing to the fact that employers don't even have to record work hours on employee pay stubs.

And when workers are injured on the job no one cares; not even most Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) laws apply to dairy workers. OSHA doesn't keep tabs on farms with 10 or fewer employees, which is perhaps understandable given the undue burden that could be placed on family farms. But the bigger employers have barely any more oversight than that. OSHA merely requires employers to report incidents, and the agency doesn't investigate unless a death occurs or an accident injures three or more workers.

States are free to pass better protections, but few do, and even fewer bother to enforce them because workers are afraid to complain. Despite the dangers, competition for dairy jobs is stiff among the immigrant community, owing to the marginally higher pay and the fact that unlike field work, it is a stable, year-round gig.

This bevy of exemptions exists due too the fact that almost all dairies used to be small, family-owned operations. These exemptions make sense when your workers are family members and a few neighbors, but when you have dozens of employees — most of which are hired from a traditionally vulnerable population — it's obviously time for proper labor laws to apply.

Another roadblock in the fight for fair working conditions is the fact that most of these immigrants are undocumented, compounding their fear of speaking out. Even in the rare cases where the law is on their side when they've been wronged, workers fear employer retaliation or deportation. The result is a desperate situation in which employers can pretty much do as they please.

However, this isn't merely a case of workers against farmers. Employers, too, are harmed by our immigration policies. Despite the economy, dairy workers have been hurting for labor. As more and more farms shut down due to plummeting milk prices, the ones that stay afloat manage to do so only by increasing their output, which requires more milkings, more cows, and more workers. Perhaps proving the point of the United Farm Workers "Take Our Jobs" campaign, few documented workers have been willing to sign up for dairy work. Many dairy farmers say that there's no way they'd still be in business without their Hispanic workforce.  Employers, too, fear government raids and fines for hiring undocumented workers, but the gap needs to be filled somehow. The fact that immigrant workers, particularly of the undocumented variety, are willing to work for less pay than Americans probably doesn't do anything to dissuade employers. Unfortunately, this also sets the stage for worker exploitation.

In light of this, both farm workers and farm employers are supporting the AgJOBS bill (S. 1038) that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) reintroduced last year. The regulation would streamline the guest worker process, reduce red tape, and give current employees a pathway to citizenship. The bill is on hold now in hopes that Congress will take up more comprehensive immigration reform, which we desperately need. But if that effort fails, you can bet this bill will be trying to make it on its own.

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