Many Genesee County farmers have referred to it as the “Farm Labor Death Bill.” One dairy farmer in LeRoy is celebrating after the Senate Agriculture Committee voted the bill down Tuesday.

“Oh this is phenomenal that it was stopped. We we’re worried about it all year,” Dale Stein of Stein Farms said.

Among other things, the bill would force farmers to pay overtime and negotiate collective bargaining agreements. On Tuesday, the Senate Agricultural Committee voted 6 to 3 against the bill.

“I think with this bill being defeated in the committee, it sends a signal to the proponents in the legislation, ‘Okay, maybe we did try to take too big a bite of the apple here,’” Dean Norton, president of the New York State Farm Bureau said.

“Even though we had a really major victory on Tuesday, I don’t think the fight is over,” Senator Mike Ranzenhofer said.

A fight that has been underway in one form or another in the state Legislature for the past two decades.

“I think we’re going to be fighting it probably forever. Basically, the state is being run by New York City and they don’t understand agriculture,” Stein said.

According to the state Senate’s web site, Senate Agriculture Committee Member Bill Stachowski from Western New York voted for the bill in Tuesday’s vote.

Dale Stein, a third-generation dairy farmer in LeRoy, Genesee County, said the majority of their costs goes to labor wages.

“We spent half of a million dollars a year on labor; if the farm labor bill would have passed it would have been $100,000 more, just for the farm labor bill,” Stein said.

Stein said his farm lost $350,000 last year. He said he would have had to cut the workers' benefits to afford the higher wages.

“We already pay health insurance, disability insurance, paid vacations, and full retirement plan. We have a side of beef a year, double time on holidays and I pay time and a half now,” Stein said.

Farm Labor Bill S2247B