Wage Bill For Farm Workers Dies

House Speaker Michael Simpson said timing, not politics, was behind his decision to order a bill held in committee that sought to extend Idaho’s $5.15-per-hour minimum wage to farm workers.

House rules require bills generated in that chamber of the Legislature to be out of committee by the session’s 50th day.

And with State Affairs Chairman Ron Crane postponing consideration of the minimum-wage bill until a week from Friday, Simpson said it was too late to be considered at all.

“Bills need to be out of committee now,” he said Wednesday. “I understand we extend that for a few days, but into next week?”

The bill’s sponsors, Boise Democrats Ken Robison and Pat Bieter, said they were disappointed by Simpson’s decision.

“Representative government doesn’t work when a decision by the speaker prevents a bill from even being heard before a committee,” Robison said.

He and Bieter said they had prepared amendments to delay implementation of the bill until July 1, 1999, and to exclude farm workers from the overtime pay provisions of the proposal.

But Simpson said the bill still might have gone too far in the wake of the 1996 legislation lifting agriculture’s longtime exemption from Idaho’s worker’s compensation insurance law.

Robison and Bieter said some of Idaho’s estimated 36,000 farm workers earn as little as $1 per hour.