Earlier this month, about a dozen workers arrived in Wolcott, a small town halfway between Rochester and Syracuse, to grow apple trees. At this time of year, farmworkers are grafting and budding — farmer-speak for fusing trees together — and planting long rows of seedlings.

They traveled to Wafler Farms, an apple orchard and fruit tree nursery, from Jamaica. Some have been making the journey for many years, living on the farm for up to three seasons and earning money to support their wives and send their children to school back home. It’s a precarious arrangement: They can only return to the farm, and therefore to the US, if their boss brings them back.

“Sometimes you have to see something being done wrong and shut your mouth — you can’t say nothing. Because if you say something, you just might not come back next year,” said Christopher, a seasonal worker who has been returning to the farm for a decade. (Four Wafler Farms workers spoke with New York Focus and asked to have their names changed to protect them from retaliation.)

Things were supposed to be different this year. A long-awaited union contract took effect in April, granting workers benefits including higher pay and the right to return each year if there is work for them.

So far, the contract is not being followed, according to the farmworkers.

Wafler Farms never agreed to the contract. The family-run farm refused to bargain with the union, which was formed in 2022 by a majority of the approximately 90 people working there during the peak of the harvest, and is affiliated with the United Farm Workers of America, a national labor union. So negotiations were moved to an independent arbitration process, as stipulated by state law. Wafler declined to participate in that process, as well, and a contract was finalized without the employer’s input.

It’s among the first few union contracts that farmworkers have won in New York since 2019, when the state legislature granted them collective bargaining rights as part of a package of landmark protections for agricultural workers. They are excluded from unionizing under federal law — a legacy of New Deal-era racial politics.

The fruit farm is now a testing ground for what workers can achieve under New York’s law, and how far the state will go to help them.

A Westchester County town’s top elected official helped advance a rezoning law that significantly increased the value of land he owned — then sold that land to a developer for nearly $3 million, reaping a substantial personal profit.

Records reviewed by New York Focus show Harrison Supervisor and Mayor Richard Dionisio participated in multiple votes related to a controversial rezoning effort without publicly disclosing his financial interest. He stepped aside from one key vote, but other actions potentially violate town ethics rules and raise conflict-of-interest concerns that have galvanized public opposition to the project.

Even before this revelation, a proposed housing project in the rezoned area had sparked pushback in Harrison, an affluent suburban town and village of about 30,000 that lies roughly 30 minutes northeast of The Bronx, with residents questioning the plan to build a six-story, 140-apartment tower in the midst of a floodplain.

“I hate coming here,” Robert Ricks said.

Ricks sat at the focal point of a hearing room in the New York state legislative office building. He’d traveled to Albany last Wednesday to testify for a second time about his son, Robert Brooks, whom prison guards beat to death in December at the Central New York prison where he was incarcerated. Video of the gruesome killing sparked nationwide outcry and calls to reform New York’s state prison system.

Prison reform was the topic of last week’s all-day hearing, which took place as the state legislature approaches its final weeks of the annual legislative session. Amid emotional testimony, Ricks outlined the Robert Brooks Agenda for Justice, a suite of legislation to expand prison oversight and make it easier to hold abusive officers to account. If lawmakers don’t pass the bills before the session ends in less than a month, they’ll have to wait until next year to try again.

For months, Congressional Republicans have dodged questions over exactly how they plan to fund another round of Trump-era tax cuts for corporations and the rich. While big-budget programs like Medicaid and SNAP have been eyed for cuts, legislators have said only that they’ll concentrate on rooting out fraud and trimming waste from those mainstays.

The answer is now becoming clear. This week, during the controversial, fast-track process known as budget reconciliation, House Republicans proposed deep and historic cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.