'It's the right thing to do': Bills would expand labor protections to farmworkers in Maine

When Thom Harnett was just out of law school, he interviewed for a job with an organization that provided legal services to farmworkers in the Hudson Valley, visiting a migrant labor camp not far from New York City.

“This was 1980, and on farms that were less than 60 miles from Manhattan … there were people without running water where they were living, that were still using outhouses, workers still then were not provided with sanitary facilities when they were in the field or were not guaranteed fresh drinking water,” Harnett said.

That experience stuck with Harnett. “It changed the way I looked at everything,” he said.

Harnett worked as an attorney for farmworkers in New York state for nine years. And while he said progress was made protecting the rights of farmworkers, “We never won the war.”

Read more: https://mainebeacon.com/its-the-right-thing-to-do-bills-would-expand-labor-protections-to-farmworkers-in-maine/