Groups Dealing With Ruling

Groups Dealing With Ruling

Groups Dealing With Ruling. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

We reported the other day that the Washington State Supreme Court last week ruled that employers must now pay piece rate workers for break times. There has been some confusion on the issue since in many cases employers were already compensating for the lack of break times with a higher piece rate wage. The tree fruit industry is taking a hard look at this issue. BJ Thurlby, President of the Washington State Fruit Commission says the Washington Tree Fruit Association is being tasked with how this ruling will be implemented but he's talked with a lot of producers about it.

THURLBY: To me it's really confusing and if you are a grower, obviously someone out there is going to have to create some kind of software package to make it all work but when you do piece-rate what that means is you might have 150 people working at one time and all of them working at a little bit different speed meaning that your piece-rate average is different for 150 people.

That will make calculating a break time rate very difficult.

THURLBY: Because of the heat and the challenges we have here the last couple of years and people are taking breaks and I know our growers are supporting the break process but I think that this piece-rate payment for break time is going to be confusing as all get out for them and I feel sorry for everyone in the system to try to figure out how to make that work.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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