Mini WARN Act Fix
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. Many would argue that Washington’s agricultural industry is overwhelmed with regulations at an extreme cost.
Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, says it’s not just the financial cost of these regulations but the complexity costs …
DeVANEY … “Because when you make violations of process and paperwork a serious infraction that can be an existential threat to a particular farm business. And it could be not anything that was done intentionally.”
Especially, DeVaney says when you change those rules, the learning curve is often very short …
DeVANEY … “For example, with that ‘Mini-Warn Act’ change, if you are not given the proper notice and determined that you were not required to do so within the 60 days of when your harvest work crews were going to be, you know, completing work for the year, then you could be potentially be sued by a third party to say, well now you have to pay them all those 60 days that they didn’t have that notice, even though those farm workers knew, because they’ve been doing the same job for years, that at the end of harvest every year the work is done and you’ve got a break before spring work begins.”
So, for seasonal workers, you might hire and give their notice on the same day? …
DeVANEY … “That’s one of the things that the agency, Employment Security Department, has recognized is probably not appropriate for agriculture and was not what may have been intended by the law, but that’s currently what the law says, so we need to get that corrected.”
Again, that’s WSTFA president Jon DeVaney.
