New I-9 Form

New I-9 Form. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Be aware that as an employer here in the state you will need to begin using a brand new I-9 form, the employment eligibility form. Dan Fazio, with Washington State Farm Bureau describes the changes.

FAZIO: New I-9 form, technical corrections. The big change is that the law used to provide that you needed to accept certain documents that were expired and now they’ve cancelled that and they say all documents henceforth that you accept that the workers give have to be unexpired.

The new form went into effect last Friday so make sure you have the correct form on hand.

FAZIO: There’s no changes at all in the sections that you fill out, it’s just sections of the form that you can accept, there’s a couple of changes there and they’re printed right there on our website and the big change is no expired drivers licenses or expired passports. Everything has to be unexpired now.

Fazio says you do not have to do anything with current employees only to new hires. And while this is not a major change it is a positive one.

FAZIO: As a matter of fact I think on balance it’s a good thing because it was very hard to explain which expired documents you could take and which expired documents you couldn’t take.

Be sure and check out the Farm Bureau website and know what the changes are.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.