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FEBRUARY 20 . 2001 •
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ers disru Senate Slaff writer
ators were livid and some pushing for the change in law worried their cause might be set back by the spectacle.
BOISE - Debate over whether to extend Idaho's minimum-wage law to farm workers reached a crescendo Monday when a group of protesting college students disrupted the Senate and bad to be carried out by police. Sixteen people were arrested, sen-
"I don't sympathize with this demonstration, but the issue is a just one," said Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow, who has a bill up for hearing Thursday to end the agricultural exemption in Idaho's minimum-
Farm workers, he said, "ought to be paid the same as everybody (else)." But, he said as senators milled around nervously after the demonstration, "I don't think it helped my bill, my chances." At hearings held in the last three years, hundreds of people from around the state have called for repealing Idaho's agricultural exemption in the minimum-wage law. But an interim committee that
wage law.
studied the issue last summer de-
Group seeks minimum wage for farm workers By Betsy Z. Russell
cided instead on a bill matching Idaho law to federal statutes, which already apply. The result may be more enforcement by state agencies for farm workers who already are covered, but the change wouldn't bring any additional workers under the minimum-wage law. While North Idaho has fewer farm workers than some agriculture-heavy parts of the state, their numbers Continued: Protest/A4
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