Rural Laws: April, 2002 - Number #9

Washington's Office of Community Development in 2000 and 2001 established tent camps that allowed farm workers to stay for up to 28 days. There are proposals in the legislature to allow farm workers to live in tents longer than 28 days. The OCD will pay, for instance, $125,000 to Chelan County to lease part of Wenatchee River Park to house up to 200 workers and their families in modular trailers. A six-foot fence will separate the migrant camp from the rest of the campground, which will be open to the public.

About $240 million worth of floral greenery-salal, mushrooms, beargrass, ferns, huckleberries, wildflowers, nuts, herbs and evergreen boughs to be made into Christmas wreaths-are harvested in Washington forests each year. Most of the harvesters are Hispanic immigrants, who get picking permits from the state and local government as well as private landowners to pick floral greenery and sell it to "brush sheds," for example, $0.80 per pound of salal. Some four million pounds of salal was picked in 2000.

The pickers are considered independent contractors, not employees. In 2001, the state Department of Labor and Industries sued several of the larger brush sheds that bought greenery, saying that the pickers were employees of the brush sheds, and had to pay pickers Washington's $6.75 an hour minimum wage plus payroll taxes. The trial is expected to begin in June 2002, but it prompted some brush sheds to treat pickers as employees.

Oregon. An Oregon Farm Worker Union, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) based in Woodburn, has been boycotting NORPAC Foods, Inc, a cooperative of 240 Willamette Valley growers of fruits and vegetables, since 1992.

In February 2002, PCUN and NORPAC announced they had reached a Framework for Managing Farm Labor Relations, ending the boycott. According to PCUN, the Framework has "clear and enforceable guidelines that provide [farm workers] with an opportunity to elect PCUN to represent them. If they do elect to join PCUN, it also establishes a framework for contract negotiations with the participating NORPAC member-growers."

Kraemer Farms of Mount Angel, Oregon in March 2002 agreed to pay $63,000 to 43 workers to settle worker complaints about wages and camp living conditions; PCUN accused Kraemer, prominent Norpac growers, of violations in a labor camp that was closed in 1999.

Idaho. Idaho required workers compensation for farm workers in 1996, minimum wage coverage for most farm workers in 2001, and in 2002 approved a law that requires the state's 80 farm labor contractors to register, be licensed, and to obtain a bond to pay unpaid wages owed to workers.

Robert Mcclure, "Bouquets may hold ill-gotten greens," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 14, 2002.