Labor Issues

Labor Issues

Labor Issues. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

Dan Fazio with wafla spends some time discussing some of the labor issues that they are keeping tabs on.

FAZIO: Labor issues are really hopping in the Pacific Northwest what with the new paid time off in Oregon that started this year and talk of dramatic increases in minimum wage in both Oregon and Washington being debated in Olympia and Salem. Meanwhile the Washington Department of Labor and Industries issued some draft guidance over how employers are supposed to deal with the extra pay for rest breaks for piece rate workers issue that we first saw surface last July. This is the issue where the Supreme Court ruled that piece rate workers need an extra 20-minutes of pay for rest breaks each day on a theory, Greg, that a piece rate does not adequately compensate workers for time that workers are not working because they're resting.

Fazio says there have been a lot of questions raised over this issue.

FAZIO: So this week L&I issued its first crack at guidance on this Supreme Court decision. The guidance is posted at our website, wafla.org. You can imagine it has a lot of big surprises for employers and advocates for employers. The biggest surprise right now is the agency is proposing that all bonuses be factored into the wages that a worker gets paid and then these increased wages go back and be somehow calculated into the money for the 20 minutes of rest break each day.

More on this tomorrow.

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

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