Dealing With I-9 Issues

Dealing With I-9 Issues. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

With harvest just around the corner farmers are getting their workforce in place and according to Dan Fazio with the Washington Farm Labor Association, that includes doing some paperwork like the I-9 forms.

FAZIO: I-9’s are the forms employers have to fill out and retain whenever they hire a worker. We had over 30 members sign up for me to come out and conduct an I-9 audit for them. Well I’ve finished over half of them and we’ve learned a lot, made a lot of corrections to the way that people are doing things.

In most cases Fazio says it takes a full day to conduct the audits but they have had good results. He talks about why the I-9 is so important.

FAZIO: Simply put, it’s like an insurance policy. Having a good I-9 is your best defense against a charge of knowingly hiring a worker who is not work authorized and the government is really stepping up their audit program. They’ve done about 2500 I-9 audits so far this year nationwide. I hear they’re going to come out with another 1000 in late September where they send out audit notices to people. The government will flat out tell you if your I-9’s are in good shape then it’s hard for them to fine you or find anything wrong with what you are doing.

If you want more information on the I-9 or have any questions you can contact Fazio at wafla.org or search for the governments website, I-9 Central. More tomorrow on the I-9 forms with Dan Fazio.

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