11/2/07 Wage Complaints

Wage Complaints. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The last bit of harvesting is being completed in the Northwest but with it comes complaints regarding payment of wages. Farmers who did not do proper documentation are getting caught in the midst of wage issues according to Dan Fazio, Director of Employer Services with the Washington Farm Bureau. FAZIO: What we found is that in certain cases some of the agricultural workers were getting together and saying, well, we wanted more of an end of season bonus than we agreed to and so they would go to L&I and if in fact there wasn't anything in writing then that was what L&I was kind of enforcing. The Wage Payment Act was passed in 2006 to help keep employees and employers wage issues on the level. But Fazio says there is one issue that farmers must comply with. FAZIO: Farmers need to keep a record. If they've got seasonal workers they need to write down in detail what the payment scheme is, if you're going to pay an end of the season bonus you need to have that in writing. It's actually a requirement of the law that it's in writing and posted or given to the workers what the payment scheme is. There have been some issue with L&I not following through on some of the important steps in the wage issue with farmers and Fazio says Farm Bureau is holding L&I's feet to the fire. He also says there are instances where it simply is not an L&I issue. FAZIO: If you get hired by a person and you believe that you're hired for $10 dollars an hour and he says no I think you were hired for 10.50 an hour, I mean that's for you to work out with your employer. I don't think the government needs to get involved in that "he said, she said" kind of stuff. I mean that's between you and the employer. If you have wage issues, Fazio would like to hear about it. You can contact him at the Washington State Farm Bureau. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.