YAKIMA, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation Tuesday granting overtime pay for all farmworkers, saying the state was “leading the country in the moral arc of the universe.”

At a signing ceremony in Yakima, Inslee said he was naming the bill for the late Tomas Villanueva, who was the first president of the United Farm Workers of Washington state.

Inslee, a former Yakima Valley resident, said that as a state legislator, congressman and governor he was inspired by Villanueva. “He was always a personal hero of mine,” Inslee said.

Senate Bill 5172 will make Washington and California the only states that grant farmworkers time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours in a week. A handful of other states mandate overtime at higher thresholds.

The law will be phased in. Beginning in 2022, the threshold will be 55 hours, dropping to 48 hours in 2023 and then 40 hours in 2024.

Inslee said the bill will give time for growers to adjust and will right historical inequities.

“The sun is shining in Yakima on the cause of justice,” he said. “The sun is shining today on a healthy, sustainable agricultural industry.”

The state Supreme Court was the catalyst for the bill.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court in November declared that denying dairy workers overtime pay was unconstitutional. The decision tossed aside a 61-year-old law and opened the way for all farmworkers to get overtime pay and exposed dairies to back-pay lawsuits.

Farm groups representing employees supported the bill as an alternative to playing a losing hand in court.

Labor groups embraced the legislation. “This is a building block to achieve worker liberation,” said Ramon Torres, president of the farmworker union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, at the signing ceremony.

Villanueva, whose family immigrated from Mexico when he was a teenager, settled in the Yakima Valley in 1958, according to the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project at the University of Washington.

He was a farmworker advocate beginning in the 1960s and ran as a Democrat for state senator in 2006, collecting 37% of the vote in a heavily Republican district.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray paid tribute to Villanueva on the Senate floor in 2009, calling him a champion for equal rights in Washington.

“Tomas’ involvement with the human-rights movement began in the early 1960s when he was inspired by UFW leader Cesar Chavez,” said Murray, a Democrat. “And since that time, Tomas has fought for numerous causes and people while maintaining his reputation as a kind, generous, compassionate and humble leader.”

Villanueva died in 2014 at the age of 72.

Inslee also signed Senate Bill 5396 to expand tax breaks for building or repairing farmworker housing.

To qualify, at least half the units must be occupied by someone who made at least $3,000 a year as a farmworker.

The bill initially discriminated against housing for farmworkers on H-2A visas, most of whom are residents of Mexico. The bill was amended, though at least one U.S. worker must occupy the housing within five years.