The Washington Supreme Court has ruled that farmworkers paid a piece rate as they labor in fields and orchards must get additional wages for their other tasks during the course of a workday.
The 5-4 decision released Thursday affects wages the state’s agricultural industry that produces more than $10 billion of crops and livestock annually while employing nearly 100,000 farmworkers.
The ruling puts new scrutiny on a farm-labor practice – piece rates – that ties wages to job productivity and are in widespread use during the fruit harvest season. The state Supreme Court found that the other tasks of piece-rate workers, such as unloading equipment at the day’s end or traveling between fields, should be tracked and then compensated through an hourly wage.
The ruling comes in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in February 2016 on behalf of two Dovex Fruit Company workers. Dovex attorneys argued that as long as the weekly paycheck for piece-rate workers equaled or exceeded the minimum wage for the number of hours they labored, the growers were in compliance with state labor law. That position was backed by the dissenting judges on the state Supreme Court, but rejected in the majority opinion.
One big question still to be settled is just what types of farm labor require that additional wages be paid to the piece-rate workers. The state Supreme Court did not attempt to define all of that labor, and instead referred that question to the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. (Seattle Times)
