Sponsors (4)
The bill creates a uniform federal overtime cap for agricultural work (up to 60 hours/week) that simplifies compliance for employers and interstate operations but raises significant health, economic, and regulatory risks for farmworkers and reduces states' ability to set stronger protections.
Farm employers and multi-state farm operations face a single federal overtime cap (up to 60 hours/week), reducing compliance complexity and administrative costs across states.
States avoid conflicting overtime caps for agricultural work, simplifying interstate agricultural regulation while retaining authority over other labor standards.
Agricultural workers in states that previously had stricter limits could now be scheduled up to 60 hours/week, increasing fatigue and health and safety risks on farms.
Low-wage agricultural workers may lose overtime protections and face greater risk of exploitative or extended scheduling, harming low-income individuals and their households.
States lose the ability to set stronger overtime protections for agricultural workers than the federal cap, limiting local regulatory flexibility to protect workers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Preempts state laws that set a maximum agricultural workweek below 60 hours, making the federal rule controlling for farm employees.
Creates a federal rule that prevents states from setting a maximum workweek for agricultural employees that is less than 60 hours. It changes the Fair Labor Standards Act to make this federal limit an explicit exception to existing language, so state laws imposing shorter agricultural workweek caps are overridden by federal law. The change directly affects agricultural workers, farm employers, and state labor rules: states would no longer be able to enforce stricter limits on hours for farm employees if those limits are below 60 hours per week.
Introduced January 7, 2025 by Claudia Tenney · Last progress January 7, 2025