How to improve pay and working conditions in entire industries in one fell swoop

The revival of an old idea is offering hope for improving pay and working conditions in entire industries all at once. That policy is often referred to as Workforce Standards Boards.

In this episode of Policy for the People, Ira Cuello-Martinez of PCUN, Oregon’s Farmworker Union, discusses the tough working conditions that farmworkers in Oregon endure, and why the creation of a Workforce Standards Board for farmworkers – something currently under discussion in Salem – could be a real game changer.

Then, David Madland of the Center for American Progress explains the benefits of Workforce Standards Boards and why there’s been a resurgence of interest in this policy.

Transcript

One of the main reasons why so many Oregonians and people across the country struggle to make ends meet is that their jobs pay poorly. And along with low wages, many of these jobs also come with very tough working conditions.

Take the case of farmworkers. The people who grow and harvest the food we eat toil in one of the lowest paid jobs, as well as one of the most physically demanding and dangerous jobs. T

The revival of an old idea, however, is offering hope for improving pay and working conditions in entire industries all at once. That policy is often referred to as workforce standards boards.

In this episode of Policy for the People, we explore the idea of workforce standards boards. In the second half of the show, we speak with David Madland, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and one of the nation’s leading researchers on the topic of workforce standards boards. David explains why, in recent years, we’ve seen a resurgence of interest in this policy.

But we begin the show with a conversation with Ira Cuello-Martinez, policy and advocacy director at PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union. Ira discusses the tough working conditions that farmworkers in Oregon endure and why the creation of a workforce standards boards for farmworkers, something currently under discussion in Salem, could be a real game changer. Here’s my conversation with Ira Cuello-Martinez.

Juan Carlos Ordóñez, host: Ira, why don’t we start with you sharing a little bit about the work of PCUN? 

Ira Cuello-Martinez: Yes, of course. PCUN stands for Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, which translates to tree planters and farmworkers united in the Northwest. We’ve been around since 1985, after a group of farmworkers got together to start unionizing efforts, to address the unsafe working conditions and low wages that they received at the time.

And to this day, we’re still facing many of the similar challenges that they faced in the 1980s. And we’re in 2025. And so the work continues. 

Juan Carlos: Can you give us a sense of the agricultural workforce here in Oregon? How many farmworkers are there and how much do they typically earn? 

Ira: So we have approximately 72,000 farmworkers across the state. Some of the most dense, densely populated farmworkers are in Marion County, Wasco County, Washington County, and Hood River County. And so we have a lot of farmworkers across the state. And farmworkers are earning approximately $34,500 annually, which is low wages compared to the rest of the workforce. And they contribute billions and billions of dollars into the Oregon state economy. So their low wages do not reflect the output that they give into the industry. 

Juan Carlos: So you mentioned that PCUN was created specifically to address the working conditions and wages that farmworkers face. I wonder if you can say more about the problems and challenges, the working conditions, that farmworkers here in Oregon face that are common across the industry?

Ira: Certainly, I think for context, it’s really important to remind folks that farmworkers and domestic workers have been excluded from very basic labor protections that stemmed from the 1930s, including the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, which gave protections for workers to unionize, to have minimum wage protections, overtime protections and child labor laws.

And unfortunately, farmworkers and domestic workers are excluded. At the time when legislators were passing these bills, they were very explicit in the racial question involved with providing farmworkers and domestic workers these protections. At the time, the 1930s, specifically in the South, many farmworkers and domestic workers were Black and African American workers. And the legislators did not want to give the same economic, social, and political power to these workers because of their race.

And today we see a lot of these exclusions impacting our current workforce, where the majority of farmworkers and domestic workers are immigrants from Latin America, specifically from Mexico, Guatemala and Central America. 

Juan Carlos: I wonder if you have any stories from farmworkers that you can share with us that illustrate the challenges that they endure? 

Yes, certainly. I want to highlight a story from one of our farmworker members here at PCUN. Her name is Jovita. She’s from Mexico, and she speaks Mixtec. So she said the following. She lived and actually has lived in Oregon for over 25 years and has worked in the fields picking blueberries, grapes, strawberries and working in nurseries. The work that they do is incredibly hard and the conditions can be extreme.

Sometimes the weather is unbearably hot and other times it is freezing cold. After so many years of this strenuous work, I wake up every morning with pain in my back and hips. The labor is exhausting and yet we’re only paid $14.50 per hour. This is not enough to survive on. The money we make barely covers the basics, including things like rent, bills, and food.

The working conditions are already tough, but they become even more unbearable depending on the contractor we’re working for. We move from job to job, contractor to contractor with no real job security. The changing weather makes it even harder to anticipate the future, and we never really know if we’ll have a job waiting for us after the season ends.

We’re constantly worried about the next season, always on edge, not knowing if we’ll be able to find work or if we’ll be left without an income. The way that we are treated at our jobs is often disrespectful, demeaning, and even humiliating. Some contractors treat us with kindness, but far too many pressure us, yell at us, and push us to work faster even when we’re exhausted or injured.

If we don’t meet their impossible expectations, they make us feel worthless and threaten us with termination. Everyone is scared to say anything because we need to pay our bills. This kind of treatment is not right. We are human beings. We deserve respect and fairness, not to be treated like we are disposable. I believe creating a state board to discuss farmworker conditions and wages is a good idea.

We need a platform where our voices can be heard and where our concerns can be addressed. Working in agriculture is hard. We put in long hours, sometimes in dangerous conditions, and we work without the safety nets that other workers may have. But we still do it because we are human and have necessities. It’s time for change.

We deserve better wages. We deserve better working conditions. We deserve to be taught what protections we have. We need to know that if we get hurt, we’ll be able to survive and not feel like we put our health on the line for $14.50 an hour, which does not even cover our needs. So again, this is a story from Jovita, who’s a farmworker here in the mid Willamette Valley sharing insights into how she experiences working in agriculture for over two decades.

Juan Carlos: I wonder how typical you think this story from Jovita is. Have you heard similar stories from others? 

Ira: We have heard a lot of stories that are similar to it. And I know many folks who have been in the agricultural industry for years and decades can share countless stories about the unsafe, unfair and bad working conditions that they face in agriculture from a variety of different types of farms.

As you heard in her testimony, she was talking about her conditions in picking blueberries, strawberries, also grapes and being involved in nurseries. But I know that this is very common and prevalent. And many of our members have shared similar stories to what she shared with us. 

Juan Carlos: You mentioned earlier the fact that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act does not protect agricultural workers and does not protect their right to organize, like it does for other workers.

Beyond the lack of federal protections, are there practical difficulties in terms of organizing farmworkers? Yeah, I think one of the most challenging things about organizing with farmworker communities is that it’s a workforce that is constantly moving from field to field, farm to farm. It’s a challenge because they have a variety of different employers, and also work with different contractors.

And so I think the fact that this is a moving workforce that’s not stable with one specific employer makes it a challenge to really organize. And I think the other piece of it, too, is that, as you heard in Jovita’s testimony, they are very fearful of retaliation. We’ve heard in some extreme cases that if a worker speaks up and tries to address any unsafe working conditions, that that worker may experience retaliation and may even be blacklisted from working with other contractors because they spoke up about any unsafe working conditions. 

Juan Carlos: This legislative session, as was mentioned in Jovita’s testimony, PCUN and others are advocating for legislation that would establish a workforce standards board for farmworkers. How would the creation of such a board address the challenges that farmworkers face?

Ira: I think the board is a very unique and innovative approach to addressing conditions in the workplace. I think it would really streamline the ability to share concerns to a body that is particularly looking at these issues and conditions, rather than trying to call through the legislator or through existing regulatory agencies. The board would have people who are directly impacted, and involved with the industry. And I think that’s what makes it so special is that it would really facilitate these conversations and discussions between employers, between workers, and between any agricultural stakeholder that has the vested interests in, in the standards that the board may set. And so for us, I think it would really simplify the process to bring up issues and concerns. 

Juan Carlos: And the workforce standards boards would set standards for wages and working conditions? What would the workforce standards board cover? 

Ira: That’s correct. We would like the wages piece to be addressed, particularly for farmworkers who are, again, or one of the lowest paid workers, but also for farmworkers who are paid by piece rate.

There are a lot of farmworkers who earn an income based on how many buckets, pounds, boxes or whatever quantity the employer decides to use. They’re paid by how much they produce. And oftentimes farmworkers are earning minimum wage, or in some cases, they’re earning less than the minimum wage, which poses the challenge of being in compliance with our state’s minimum wage laws.

And what’s been happening in the fields is that our members are feeling extra pressure to pick at a faster rate without earning a higher rate wage, to compensate for the increase in minimum wage laws that we have in Oregon. The other piece that the standards board would set is having uniform training standards. I think there are a lot of different rights and protections that exist for farmworkers, and we want to make sure the board is able to help develop a curriculum that would work for farmworkers, as well as supervisors and anyone who’s involved with agriculture, so that everyone understands what their rights are, what protections that they have, if they are experiencing workplace violations, how they can report any of those violations to the appropriate regulatory agency. So I think that another key part of this board is that it would set training standards that the industry can use to help inform every stakeholder with the different protections, rights, and laws that exist for farmworkers. 

Juan Carlos: What would you say to farm owners or the business owners who may view the creation of a work for standards boards as burdensome?

Ira: We believe that this would be the appropriate space to have these conversations. We have worked on several different policies and legislation in the past, and oftentimes there’s a lot of politics involved with trying to pass these protections. And I think the standards board is a unique space that takes away that political pressure that we often face in the legislature.

And, again, facilitate these conversations. Growers and farmers will be at the table and they will have voting power to set the standard for the industry. 

Juan Carlos: Ira, I’m wondering if you have any final thoughts you want to share with us regarding the working conditions that farmworkers here in Oregon face and what the creation of a Workforce Standards Board might mean for their well-being.

Ira: You know, I think ultimately, we’re really trying to protect the health and safety and dignity and have a dignified workplace for farmworkers. You know, oftentimes they are facing a lot more extreme weather conditions than they have ever experienced in the past. I grew up in Oregon. I grew up seeking blueberries as well, here in the mid Willamette Valley.

And it was not as hot back then as it is today. We are reaching temperatures where it exceeds over a hundred degrees. And this is something that was not common back in back when I was picking blueberries. And so I know, you know, the increasing rate of extreme weather conditions has been placing additional unsafe working conditions that farmworkers are facing because farmwork is done outdoors. It’s done outside. 

And I think that’s another piece that we really want to be mindful of. And make sure that we, as an industry, are having active conversations about how to address these new conditions that we’re starting to experience in Oregon. I think farmwork is one of the most dangerous occupations in the country because of the climate conditions, because of the strenuous labor that they’re putting in.

And it has a high rate of injuries. And so we want to make sure that we’re avoiding and mitigating as much of those issues as possible by setting standards that make sense for both workers and employers. 

Juan Carlos: That was Ira Cuello-Martinez, policy and advocacy director with PCUN, Oregon’s farm worker union. We continue our exploration of the policy known as workforce standards boards. David Madland is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. David discusses the benefits of workforce standards boards and the resurgence of interest in this policy as a way to improve pay and working conditions. Here’s my conversation with David Madland. 

Juan Carlos: So, David, in recent years we’ve seen growing interest in workforce standards boards. And these are sometimes called wage boards or industry boards. Can you explain to us what these boards are and what problem they are trying to solve? 

David Madland: Yeah. So these boards, as you mentioned, have passed now in about six states and three different cities. And what they do is they bring together representatives of workers, representatives of companies and representatives of the government to sit on a board or a panel to set standards for an entire industry.

So things like wages and training standards. And the reason that they’re important is, I think for a couple of things, they, you know, bring together the people who are most directly affected by standards and give them a voice. You know, especially in industries where those who are workers would have a really hard time expressing their voice, but they also give the opportunity for employers to similarly have a voice and know and speak to the challenges that they’re facing.

Juan Carlos: And who creates these workforce standards boards? How do they come into existence? 

David: Well, the legislature passes a law that then the governor signs, or if it’s in the city, the city council passes and the mayor signs, creating these bodies. That gives them some authority to set some standards and outline the kinds of people who will represent the workers and represent the employers on the board.

Juan Carlos: What is the need for these Workforce Standards Boards? What problem are they solving that traditional workplace organizing hasn’t been able to? 

David: So, these boards are solving a lot of simultaneous problems. So one, you mentioned worker organizing: trying to form a union and then collectively bargaining at an individual worksite is very challenging under our current laws.

And in certain kinds of industries, especially what we consider sort of heavily fissured industries that are spread out and disaggregated, because of layers of contracting and the like, are very, very hard for workers to come together, and form a union and then be able to negotiate. And even if they do, even if they somehow succeeded in winning a union, which is almost impossible, the firms that they negotiate with would have a difficult time raising the standards because they’re just one little small player and their direct competitor would have much lower labor costs. So these boards help address those issues by bringing all the players together, giving the workers an actual seat at the table, and ensuring the standards are going to be equal across the entire industry, so that all employers compete on a level playing field.

And I think that’s the major thing that they are addressing, but they are also addressing some set of other challenges. A lot of times, certain industries, like the care industries, have issues with recruitment and retention of staff. And so they need to not only raise wages, but they need to find ways to improve and increase the training there.

And so these boards allow you to address multiple interrelated issues and have the voices of the most directly affected people involved and at the table. 

Juan Carlos: So you mentioned these workforce standards boards addressing issues of wages and other standards. So how would you say these workforce standard boards can benefit workers? 

David: Well, they benefit them in sort of really objective material ways. They can, you know, raise wages, ensure they have workers, have training, have safe workplaces and the like. So workers clearly benefit by these higher standards. But when I’ve spoken to workers who are participating in these boards, they really appreciate the voice. And sometimes that’s the voice of the worker who actually is on the board. But other times, even just the people who can participate, they say, yes, I had the opportunity to speak at this hearing and talk about the challenges that we face. And so I felt heard and empowered. And so I think workers benefit both by better conditions, but also by the seat at the table and the empowerment that comes with that.

Juan Carlos: Are there benefits to businesses in the industry as well? 

David: Yes, there definitely are. I have spoken to a number of businesses who are onon these boards. And one quote that stands out most to me was an employer saying something like, I know my business much better than any legislator or politician does. And so the fact that I am here and can help set the standards and negotiate directly with the workers and come to a compromise is a much better way than just having the legislators in the capital make some decisions. So one, just like the workers, the employers feel a sense of empowerment to be on the body.

Others will say, at least I’m competing on a fair playing field. Whereas if I was forced to have higher wages than my competitor, that wouldn’t be the right situation. Instead, we can compete fairly and I can show that I run my business better. And then the last thing is that some employers appreciate the ability to solve these collective challenges that go across their entire industry, and they wouldn’t have a vehicle for doing so, as I mentioned.

And in certain kinds of specialty care industries there’s significant worker shortages. So for example, nursing homes are short staffed. And they could make more money if they could hire more staff, because they could take care of more residents. But they can’t do that and they need this body to help them set the standards that are going to enable them to hire more workers.

Juan Carlos: What would you say is the relationship between workforce standards boards and unions? Are they substitutes for unions? Do they complement the work of unions? How do you see that interaction? 

David: I think it’s a little of everything. Mostly they’re compliments. So as we started off, these boards’ role is to set standards and involve workers in the process of setting those standards. That’s somewhat like a union, but not really. Most unions in the US will set the standards just at the workplace rather than the entire industry. So that’s one clear difference. But also the unions then often are the drivers of these kinds of policies, because they see this as a way to raise standards and get their workers, which when they couldn’t do so in any other way, as I mentioned, because oftentimes these industries are really heavily fissured, which makes traditional organizing very, very difficult.

And traditional collective bargaining is almost impossible because they can’t raise the wages at one particular firm without creating some economic challenges. So typically the unions are supportive of these policies and like it and then find a way to work with the board as they try to build collective power for the workers. 

Juan Carlos: Are workforce standards boards, sometimes this policy is called sectoral bargaining, is this a relatively new idea or does it have a longer history? 

David: It’s got a very long history. So it’s both new and old. In the early 1900s, and was what we call the Progressive Era in the United States, many states, in fact most states, had something akin to these sectoral standards bodies where workers and employers and the government would set minimum standards.

And then, in fact, the original federal minimum wage law included a board that would have the ability to set the minimum wage, faster and higher in certain industries. But, the use of this idea kind of was ignored and forgotten for a long time. And then since 2018, there’s been a rebirth of this idea. And I think that’s due to several things. One, that industry more and more has been, fissured and fractured into these small subcontracted units, which is akin to some of the challenges in the early 1900s that policymakers were trying to address. And we see around the world this resurgence, belief in a recognition that bargaining across an entire sector is a very successful way to raise standards and empower workers.

And the countries that have been able to adopt those kind of policies have been most successful at ensuring high standards for workers, even in the face of all of the challenges that have made it hard for most countries to deliver real economic gains for most workers. 

Juan Carlos: You talked about the rebirth of this idea here in the US. Can you give us an example or two of states that have established workforce standards boards? In in what industry and what we’ve learned so far? 

David: Sure. The probably the most well known is in California for fast food workers. It’s created a standards board, and they have successfully raised a significant, quite high minimum wage for these workers just in the first year of its operation.

But we also have in Nevada, home care workers. They have boards. Nevada, and Minnesota has nursing homes. Then we have agriculture boards in Colorado and New York. And so we’ve learned a number of things. One, that this model works today, in a range of different kinds of industries. We’ve also seen that it can work for both employers and for workers,  especially when the boards have sufficient authority that they are able to raise standards and have more success. And my view is that we will continue to see this trend spreading because of the success that this new wave of standards boards has created. 

Juan Carlos: David, any final thoughts you want to share with us regarding this policy of workforce standards boards? The moment is really ripe for this kind of a policy.

David: We’ve had long term challenges in the economy that have made it very hard for most workers, especially those without a college degree, to get ahead. Wage wages are stagnant. But the cost of living keeps getting higher. And the mechanisms that policymakers have tried and across the country, many of them have not really been very successful.

Yet here we have this new and quite successful model that really, I think, is poised to expand into lots more cities and states and into new and additional industries because it brings the key parties together. It has the ability to not only raise standards, but make the economics work for the employers and gives everyone a voice in the decision making.