Regardless of your immigration status, you have the right to certain protections.

All workers, including farmworkers and other low-wage workers, have a right to earned sick leave. If you work in construction, restaurants, or landscaping, you probably have the right to overtime pay (time and a half). In some situations, farmworkers may be eligible for overtime as well. 

Under the law, more than one person or company can be your employer. For example, if you are working on a farm, the farmer, crew leader, and the person who hired you, could all have legal responsibilities.

Wages

You must be paid at least the minimum wage for every hour you work. This is true even if you agreed to work for less and regardless of your immigration status. NJ minimum wage law provides more substantial rights than federal law. If your employer agreed to pay you more than the minimum wage, they must pay you the amount they promised.

A “piece rate” is when you are paid for each unit of work that you do. For example, if you are paid for each box of blueberries that you pick, then you are paid by a piece rate.

If you are paid by a piece rate, your employer must still pay you at least the NJ minimum wage for each hour you work. If your employer isn’t keeping records of each hour that you work, you are probably not being paid the minimum wage.

If you are paid a weekly salary, your employer must still pay you at least the NJ minimum wage for each hour you work.

Right to a Pay Receipt

When you are paid, your employer must provide a pay stub or paper showing the hours you worked and a description of everything that was deducted from your pay.

Deductions from Your Pay

Your employer is only allowed to deduct (subtract) state and federal taxes, food, and housing from your wages, if they follow certain rules.
If your employer deducts money from your pay for food or housing, they are not allowed to make a profit from it. For example, if your meal costs the employer only $3.50 to prepare, the deduction can only be for $3.50, not a higher amount.

Your employer may not force you to buy anything from them or anyone else.

Information About Your Job

As an agricultural worker, you have the rights listed below in every state in the United States.

Your employer must give you information about your job at the time you are hired. This is often before you arrive at the farm. You have the right to receive the following information in writing:

• Where am I going?
  You have the right to specific information about the location of your job, including the farm’s name and address.
• How much will I make?
  You have the right to know how much you are going to be paid. This information must be specific. If you are going to be paid based on how much you pick (piece rate), then you must be told the rate you will be paid.
• What am I hired to do?
  You have the right to know the kind of crops you will pick or the kind of tasks you will do at work.
• How long will the job last?
  You have the right to know how long your job will last. This can be stated in days, weeks, or months.
• Where will I live?
  If your employer is going to provide you with housing, you have a right to know. In NJ, your employer cannot charge you for housing. In other states, if you are charged for housing, you must be told how much you will be charged. You have a right to this information when you are hired, not when you arrive at the farm. The information should be given to you in writing, in the language you speak.

Travel Expenses

Did someone recruit you to work in NJ? Did they recruit you from another state or country? If so, you might have the right to be paid for your travel expenses to NJ.
For example, if your hometown is in Florida, and you are hired in Florida, your employer must pay for your trip to NJ.

Health and Safety

There are laws that give all farmworkers the right to work and live in a safe place. As an agricultural worker, you have these rights in every state in the United States.

Water

Your employer must provide cool, clean, and fresh water in a disposable cup while you are working. If the employer does not provide cool and fresh water, workers may not drink sufficient water during work. In addition, heat stress related illnesses and deaths of farmworkers occur nationally on a regular basis, so these protections are very important. In particular, the first heat wave of the summer, when workers have not adjusted to conditions, has been shown to be particularly dangerous for worker health.

Heat

Farmworkers can get sick from doing hard work in the heat and humidity. To stay healthy:

• Drink lots of cool water
• Take lots of rest breaks in the shade
• Wear loose fitting clothing
• Perform the heaviest, hardest work early in the day
• Avoid drinks with caffeine or alcohol

Heat exhaustion symptoms include: Headache, dizziness, extreme thirst, nausea, heavy sweating, general weakness. If you have these symptoms, stop working and find some shade. Drink water and cool off. If heat exhaustion is ignored, it can quickly turn into heat stroke, which is much more serious.

Heat stroke symptoms include: Dry pale skin, hot red skin, confusion, seizures, collapsing/passing out.

If someone has heat exhaustion or heat stroke symptoms, GET EMERGENCY HELP IMMEDIATELY. Move the person to a shaded area and try to cool them down by removing heavy clothing and cooling their skin with wet cloths.

Bathrooms

Your employer must give you access to a toilet and sink within 1/4 of a mile from where you are working. In addition,

• There must be one toilet for every 20 workers.
• Your employer must let you use the bathroom whenever you need.
• Your employer can’t charge you for bathroom use or water.

Pesticides

Pesticides are chemicals used to kill insects, weeds, or diseases that harm crops. They are poisonous and exposure to them can cause serious health problems for you and those you live with. Your employer must tell you:

• The names of the pesticides used
• When the pesticides will be used
• Where the pesticides will be used, with a map of the farm showing the fields, and when pesticides will be used on each crop
• When it will be safe to go back to the area where the pesticide was applied
• How to protect yourself against pesticides
• The name, address, and telephone number of the closest emergency care medical centers

Housing

If your employer provides you with housing, it must meet the requirements of national and state laws. It must meet these standards whether or not you pay for the housing.
Your housing must have:

• Windows with screens, and the windows must open and close
• Hot and cold drinking water
• A place to wash dishes and clothes
• A bathroom, which must be clean
• At least one sink for every 15 people in the housing unit
• At least one shower for every 10 people, with hot water and a working drain
• Separate bedrooms and bathrooms for men and women
• A first aid site for emergencies

Your housing must not:

• Be located in a place that floods, near a swamp, near farm animals, or in an area infested by insects
• Have beds directly on the floor
• Have several beds stacked on top of each other or placed very close to each other

Injuries at Work

In NJ, if you are injured while working, you have the right to medical treatment and possibly other benefits. Your employer must:

• Carry workers’ compensation insurance and tell their insurance company about your accident
• Send you to a doctor associated with its insurance plan and pay for your treatment (after you report the injury to your employer)

If your employer doesn’t provide you medical treatment, you should get medical treatment on your own. Depending on how bad your injury is, you may also have a right to other benefits, including temporary disability benefits for the time you cannot work.
If you get hurt at work:

• Tell your employer as soon as possible. Don’t wait more than 90 days from the date of the injury.
• Get medical treatment immediately

Understand your rights

Sometimes your employer or others may tell you information about the law that is not true. To make sure that your employer is not breaking the law, it is important that you understand your legal rights in the field and in your housing. You usually have two years from the date of the injury to file a petition against your employer to get treatment and benefits.

Keep good records

It is very important to keep good records. You can use this information later to make sure your employer pays you all the money they owe and, if they don’t, to collect your money. You should always write down:

• Dates that you worked
• Time you started work each day
• Time you stopped work each day
• Amount of time for any breaks you took
• Number of pieces (if you were paid the piece rate)
• Address and description of where you did the work
• Description of the work you did
• Names of your boss and supervisors
• Type of vehicles and license plate numbers of the vehicles your boss and supervisors drive
• Names, phone numbers, and addresses of other workers
• Total pay received
• Anything your boss made you pay for or took from your earnings to pay for (such as housing, gloves, or transportation)
• Total pay owed

Even after a job is over, save all of your pay stubs, pay envelopes, or other proof of your work and pay. It is important to save all your notes about the work for at least three years!

Seek legal advice and representation

If you think you have a problem, it may be helpful to talk to a lawyer. Some of the things a lawyer can do include research and explain the law, tell you how the law affects your situation, contact your employer, make an anonymous complaint to a government agency, or file a case in court against your employer. A lawyer can also help you do many of these things yourself and may be able to help you to find other kinds of assistance, such as housing, food, or medical care.

When you work with a lawyer, everything you tell them is confidential, so they would never contact your employer, or anyone else, without your permission.

Be careful of “notarios” who offer to help you with legal problems in exchange for money. In the United States, notarios do not have any special training and are not lawyers. Even if you have a lawyer, make sure they have experience in the kind of legal problems they are helping you with.

Join with others to protect workers’ rights

Workers in some areas have decided to join together to protect their rights. You have a right to join with workers and others to improve working conditions and enforce your rights.

Still need help?

LSNJ’s Workers’ Legal Rights Project provides free legal services to low-income people regardless of their immigration status. Request help through the statewide LSNJLAW^SM Hotline, online at www.lsnjlawhotline.org or by calling 1-888-LSNJ-LAW (1-888-576-5529).

This information last reviewed: Mar 20, 2026