AUGUSTA, Maine — A invoice to pay farm employees in Maine a $13.80 per hour minimal wage was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday, who says she helps the idea however had questions in regards to the invoice’s language.

Lawmakers will get a chance to override the veto subsequent week.

House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross sponsored the invoice, which might cowl farmworkers below Maine’s yearly listed minimal wage. But the invoice was amended to entitling them to time beyond regulation pay as effectively. The governor, in her veto letter, stated adjustments made at her behest didn’t alleviate her issues in regards to the “scope of the language.”

Talbot Ross accused the governor of “using the power of her office to maintain inequality amongst Mainers.”

“In its amended version, this legislation simply would have ensured that farmworkers are paid the same state minimum wage that every single other worker in Maine is paid. It would have recognized that the people who perform the backbreaking labor entailed by harvesting our food should be paid at least as much as the people who serve us a coffee,” she stated.

Mills stated she intends to problem an govt order to formally reestablish a stakeholder group “to allow for a longer and more in-depth analysis” of the invoice with the aim of arriving at “a shared understanding of how to implement a minimum wage bill for farmworkers.” She stated she’ll current her personal invoice subsequent yr based mostly on the conclusions.

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