Honorable Richard Bloom
Member of the Assembly, 50th Assembly District
State of California

Re: Farmworker Overtime Bill – AB 1066

Dear Assemblyman Bloom:

Among the points of commonality shared between the Santa Monica Democratic Club and you as our assemblymember, is a commitment to issues affecting workers. Even before your first election to the Santa Monica City Council you were marching against injustice and for a living wage.

Now another group of the most hardworking among us – farmworkers – need that commitment to fairness and justice you demonstrated for hotel workers. As has been the case with resistance to a living wage, employers spend time and money to deny the earned overtime wages. Agribusiness, while paying exorbitant amounts to its lawyers and lobbyists, decries the need while profiting from the backbreaking additional work. Smaller and small farms feel the pinch, but the farmworkers suffer the difficulty and the health consequences.

Our economy, national and state, rests on the shoulders of people who do the hardest work while multiple others benefit. Those workers, especially farmworkers whose working and living conditions are generally among the poorest, earn every nickel and every dollar they are paid. When they continue that very hard work after 8 hours, surely already exhausted and with their health at risk, it cannot be a question whether they should be paid overtime.

Please vote “Yes” on Assembly Bill 1066, continuing your commitment to economic justice for workers.

Thank you for all of your hard work,
SANTA MONICA DEMOCRATIC CLUB

Jay P. Johnson                                 Maryanne Solomon

Co-President                                             Co-President