OLYMPIA — Exempting Washington farmers from paying overtime wages has a racist history and undoing its legacy won’t be “easy or cheap,” a Seattle senator said in an email to other senators Feb. 24.

The racism may not have been intentional, but the roots “cannot be denied,” wrote Sen. Rebecca Saldana, a Democrat on the Senate labor committee.

“Undoing historical structural racism in our politics and law is not easy or cheap, but it can be done,” she wrote.

Saldana’s assertion that denying farmworkers overtime pay was grounded in racism comes as lawmakers consider whether to intervene and shield agricultural employers from backpay lawsuits, suits that farm groups warn pose existential threats to some producers.

The lawsuits, more than 30, were filed after the state Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in November that not paying dairy workers time-and-a-half for hours over 40 worked in a week was unconstitutional.

The ruling nullified a 61-year-old state law modeled after the 1938 federal Fair Labor Standards Act. No other state has so abruptly discarded agriculture’s overtime exemption and exposed farmers to back-pay lawsuits.

The decision settled that going forward dairies, and likely other farms, will pay overtime. The court did not address whether the decision allowed workers to claim they had been underpaid for up to the previous three years.

The Washington State Dairy Federation estimates that the industry faces $90 million to $120 million in retroactive claims, unless lawmakers pass a bill this session barring the lawsuits.

As legislation stands now, it would be a victory for labor groups. The court’s ruling would apply to all farms and employees would be due back pay for up to three years at 12% interest per year.

Saldana, a former farmworker union organizer, said in an email to the Capital Press that she supports the bill, which has been endorsed by the Senate Labor, Commerce and Tribal Affairs Committee.

“I do support retroactivity,” she said. “The bill would modernize our law to orient our economy towards moral standards rather than the minimal standards that are the legacy from the past,” she said.

“At the same time, I am engaging with my colleagues and the interested parties to explore possible compromises,” she said. “I’ve invited my colleagues to share their perspectives, thoughts, or questions to help facilitate finding solutions to this complex issue.”

Yakima Sen. Curtis King, a Republican who has taken the lead in negotiating a bill to shield farms from back-pay lawsuits, declined an interview.

Past racism was a theme in briefs filed by attorneys representing two former milkers at DeRuyter Brothers Dairy. The federal act appeased Southern Democrats oppressing black farmworkers, they claimed.

The view was “historical background” rather than a legal argument, according to the first brief submitted to the Supreme Court, and the court’s ruling opinion did not cite racism as a reason for eliminating the exemption.

Justice Steven Gonzalez, however, in a separate concurring opinion traced the law to racism and the exploitation of blacks on plantations. The workers should be awarded retroactive pay, he wrote.

The court’s four dissenting justices strongly disputed both the majority opinion and Gonzalez’s concurring opinion.

They found fault with the majority’s constitutional reasoning and added that it would be unfair to penalize farmers who were following a law that had been in place — and unchallenged — for six decades.

According to a court brief filed by the dairy federation and Washington Farm Bureau, the state agricultural workforce in 1959 was 85% white.