[2006alum]

As to my inquiry, it is worth noting that marketing was on the list of excluded activities from overtime.  So the question still stands in a modified form; who cares about restricting overtime for people marketing agricultural produce (and I guss the answer is, their employers).  But my point is that while you don't want people working with perishable foods to be pokey getting them processed or delivered, I'm not sure what the state's interest in restricting overtime to those engaged in marketing would be.

BC

My guess is that this is yet another example of industry capture - the food production lobby wanted a law to exempt all of their workforce from overtime laws, and so they used the urgency of perishable foods to justify a substantial exemption from overtime laws. And unfortunately for them, their lobbyists-who probably provided the draft bill - don't understand how the Oxford comma works.

That being said, I suspect that removing overtime rules now would not return us to that era.  Workers are substantially more productive now than they were then, so there should be a concomitant increase in the value of that labor.  The labor market is pretty tight at the moment, so it would be hard for an employer to cut wages unilaterally.  The rising skill level needed to perform even fairly routine jobs means that workers aren't as interchangeable as they used to be, and thus there are costs to an employer with high employee turnover.  And the presence of social media campaigns, a 24/7 media, etc. means that a truly abusive employer probably couldn't get away with it for long.

There are tons and tons of lawsuits alleging pretty abusive labor practices even now, with the FLSA. In under-regulated areas like agriculture and food production, abuses of workers (often undocumented) are extensive.

[2006alum]

As to my inquiry, it is worth noting that marketing was on the list of excluded activities from overtime.  So the question still stands in a modified form; who cares about restricting overtime for people marketing agricultural produce (and I guss the answer is, their employers).  But my point is that while you don't want people working with perishable foods to be pokey getting them processed or delivered, I'm not sure what the state's interest in restricting overtime to those engaged in marketing would be.

BC

My guess is that this is yet another example of industry capture - the food production lobby wanted a law to exempt all of their workforce from overtime laws, and so they used the urgency of perishable foods to justify a substantial exemption from overtime laws. And unfortunately for them, their lobbyists-who probably provided the draft bill - don't understand how the Oxford comma works.

That being said, I suspect that removing overtime rules now would not return us to that era.  Workers are substantially more productive now than they were then, so there should be a concomitant increase in the value of that labor.  The labor market is pretty tight at the moment, so it would be hard for an employer to cut wages unilaterally.  The rising skill level needed to perform even fairly routine jobs means that workers aren't as interchangeable as they used to be, and thus there are costs to an employer with high employee turnover.  And the presence of social media campaigns, a 24/7 media, etc. means that a truly abusive employer probably couldn't get away with it for long.

There are tons and tons of lawsuits alleging pretty abusive labor practices even now, with the FLSA. In under-regulated areas like agriculture and food production, abuses of workers (often undocumented) are extensive.