Brooklyn Grange farmworkers rally over stalled contract talks

Current and former farmworkers and staff from Brooklyn Grange gathered under a pop-up tent at McGolrick Park in Greenpoint on May 3, holding a rally beside a farmers market where the company had operated a stand for more than a decade.

Workers said management abruptly shut down the farm stand earlier this year. At the rally, workers distributed flyers, displayed posters and gathered signatures on sign-up sheets from passersby to protest stalled contract negotiations.

In 2024, 15 farmworkers at Brooklyn Grange voted unanimously to join the United Farm Workers (UFW), becoming the first urban farm union in New York City. While agricultural workers are excluded from the federal National Labor Relations Act, New York farmworkers gained the right to organize under the state’s Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA), signed in 2019 and effective in 2020.

Brooklyn Grange is a for-profit urban green space firm that operates commercial rooftop farms and event venues. Its 3.2-acre Sunset Park operation, 850 Third Ave., is located on the roof of the Liberty View Industrial Plaza. This season, the company reduced staffing at three of its farms, employing 12 workers, three fewer than last year.

Following a year of contract negotiations, the union filed a declaration of impasse in July 2025 with the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), the state agency that enforces the FLFLPA.

“We never thought that we would have to file for an impasse,” said Joan Hwang, a Brooklyn Grange farmworker.

The union and management held two negotiation sessions with a state-appointed mediator during a 30-day mediation period but failed to reach an agreement.

The farm crews are employed on a seasonal basis, working part time or full time for roughly six months out of the year, typically from mid-April through October. In a letter to management, workers demanded wage increases, fixed six-month seasonal schedules, hazard pay and health care benefits.

Crew members currently earn between $20 and $22 per hour. They are seeking a raise to $26 per hour.

“The company has suggested they are experiencing financial struggles that limit their ability to meet the union’s demands; however, they have not provided the union with comprehensive financial information that has been requested multiple times since July 2025,” UFW organizer Gabriella Szpunt said.

“The main point is that we are still not in agreement about pay,” Hwang said. “There were some tentative agreements on the right to know how long the season is going to be.”

Under New York’s agricultural collective bargaining laws, farmworkers have rights that differ from other private-sector employees. Additionally, the state law explicitly prohibits farm laborers from engaging in strikes, work stoppages or slowdowns.

Workers allege the company is intentionally dragging out the process.

“They just drag on and then they will expect people to just drop out,” Hwang said.

Hwang added that management’s rhetoric during meetings has frustrated employees.

“In the meeting, the CEO said, ‘What if there’s a giant snowstorm in April, we’re just supposed to have you come into the greenhouse and twiddle your thumbs and do nothing?’” Hwang said. “That is so insulting because we’ve never in this job, which is hard labor, twiddled our thumbs and just sat and done nothing.”

Since the passage of the FLFLPA, a wave of farms across New York have unionized. The UFW has successfully certified workers at eight upstate commercial farms, while the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) have organized six additional farms in upstate New York and Long Island.

However, winning and enforcing union contracts has proven difficult. Although workers at multiple New York farms have won union certification, only a small number have secured contracts that are signed or being implemented.

In 2025, workers at Cahoon Farms secured UFW’s first New York contract covering both seasonal guest workers and year-round employees after two years of protracted negotiations. More recently, workers at Wafler Farms, an upstate apple orchard, won a contract after a Wayne County judge ordered the farm to implement the contract dictated by a state-appointed arbitrator.

The bargaining unit intends to continue negotiations.

“We are still negotiating and attempting to reach a voluntary agreement with the company; however, the arbitration provision in the New York State Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act may be the next step to conclude this process to achieve a collective bargaining agreement to protect and expand the benefits of the farm workers at Brooklyn Grange,” Szpunt said.

Brooklyn Grange did not respond to the Sunset Post’s request for comment.