Farmworker lawsuit over unionizing could reshape NY agriculture

The battle lines are drawn over a lawsuit that could reshape agriculture in New York State. Civil rights advocates are suing to give farm workers the right to form unions and bargain collectively. The state’s largest farm lobby has signed on in opposition, after Governor Cuomo wouldn’t. The case centers on an incident at a dairy farm in Lewis County. New York’s constitution guarantees every worker the right to organize. But a state law, the Employment Relations Act, excludes agricultural workers. "They are the one group who is not able to seek relief in the event that their right to organize is violated," says Erin Beth Harrist, lead counsel with the New York Civil Liberties Union. The NYCLU is suing to change the law on behalf of two upstate advocacy groups, the Workers' Center of Central New York and the Worker Justice Center of New York, and the state’s estimated 60,000 farmworkers. Harrist said the exclusion is unconstitutional and based on outdated policy from the Jim Crow era of the 1930s.