Challenges Facing Farm Employers and Employees In California | Ali Hill

In this episode of Smoke & Mirrors, Jennifer Ifft talks with Ali Hill, an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, to make sense of one of agriculture's most complex issues: the farm workforce. Drawing on her work with growers and farm workers in California, Ali discusses how data gaps make it difficult to establish even basic facts about the farm workforce, the growing role of farm labor contractors in meeting seasonal workforce needs, and how employers are hard pressed to keep up with changing labor regulations as minimum wages and compliance costs rise. She also discusses the ambiguous impact of overtime protections on earnings, as some farm workers could end up with fewer hours and smaller paychecks when employers cut hours to avoid overtime costs. She addresses the challenges of finding affordable housing for farm workers and what automation can realistically do to address labor shortages.