UTICA — Should the state allow farmworkers to unionize, even if it could mean halting food production?

A lawsuit was recently filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union to allow farmworkers to be included in the State Employment Relations Act. The act, which already covers many employees in other occupations, allows employees to organize under a collective bargaining act, among other things.

While the State Supreme Court dismissed the case, the NYCLU appealed it to the Supreme Appellate Court on Monday, arguing that exempting farmworkers from the act wouldn’t drastically shift the agricultural labor environment in the state.

“The reality is, to protect (agricultural) interests, and they might be valid interests, you do not need to exclude a whole group of workers … from any of these protections whatsoever,” said Erin Beth Harrist, senior staff attorney with the NYCLU.

The counterargument by farmers and the New York Farm Bureau is that providing farmworkers the ability to strike could decimate a farmer’s crop yield or even damage a farmer’s means of production. An example, they say, is the dairy industry, where farmers have to milk cows regularly.

“Much of agriculture is driven by the seasons and the weather in a way that is different from any other occupation,” the Farm Bureau stated in a news release. “A work stoppage in the name of a labor strike can seriously put animal health and a season’s worth of work in jeopardy.”

The NYCLU is representing plaintiff Crispin Hernandez, who was fired from Marks Farms in Lowville after his employer found him discussing workplace conditions after hours, Harrist said.

The NYCLU also argued in a news release that farmworkers “often earn wages well below the poverty level, and many live in overcrowded labor camps and toil under sweatshop-like conditions.”

“I don’t know (if changing the law) would change (the agricultural industry) that much except to hopefully increase the well-being of farmworkers who tend to be some of the most vulnerable and mistreated workers in the state,” Harrist said.

Much of the farmwork labor in New York state comes from undocumented immigrants. Ben Simon of Simon Farms in Remsen said many workers come from South America and hope to send money home.

Simon does not have such labor working at his farm. But he said the NYCLU’s claims that conditions are difficult for workers are fabricated.

“There is a total 100 percent misconception that they are treated badly on the farms,” Simon said. “They have a network that is unbelievable — and if you misuse them or abuse them or not pay them fairly, they’re gone.”

Simon also said that this labor force is getting smaller due to the Trump administration’s curtailing of undocumented immigration, which makes such employees a greater commodity for local farms.

Whether they're hiring illegal or legal labor, farmers have to compete against other businesses and provide competitive wages and benefits, said Steve Ammerman, public affairs manager for the Farm Bureau.

“Farmworkers are incredibly valuable to the work that happens on the farm … so there’s a lot of respect and value to the people that they employ,” he said.

Harrist said that California already has laws in place for its farmworkers to unionize if need be.

A majority of the states, however, don’t have that rule in place, Ammerman said.

“When it comes to the bigger picture of things like collective bargaining, farming is such a unique industry,” Ammerman said. “You can’t take rules that might work in a business or an assembly line … that doesn’t apply to agriculture.”

Contact reporter Joseph Labernik at 315-792-4995 or follow him on Twitter (@OD_Labernik).