BILL REQ. #:  H-4128.1 

READ FIRST TIME 02/11/14.   

     AN ACT Relating to allowing nonprofit corporations and organizations and certain transit providers to provide transportation services to agricultural employees; amending RCW 19.30.010; adding a new section to chapter 19.30 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   Farm laborers have limited transit options available to them and often face financial constraints preventing travel to work by personal vehicle. It is the intent of the legislature that transit agencies and nonprofit transportation providers are able to support vanpool programs for agricultural workers in the same manner as other vanpool programs, while maintaining the existing protections provided in current law for agricultural workers. It is also the intent of the legislature to make vanpool programs for local agricultural workers possible, but not to fund transportation for workers brought in under the federal H-2A or H-2B visa programs.

Sec. 2   RCW 19.30.010 and 1985 c 280 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:
     As used in this chapter:
     (1) "Person" includes any individual, firm, partnership, association, corporation, or unit or agency of state or local government.
     (2) "Farm labor contractor" means any person, or his or her agent or subcontractor, who, for a fee, performs any farm labor contracting activity.
     (3) "Farm labor contracting activity" means recruiting, soliciting, employing, supplying, transporting, or hiring agricultural employees.
     (4) "Agricultural employer" means any person engaged in agricultural activity, including the growing, producing, or harvesting of farm or nursery products, or engaged in the forestation or reforestation of lands, which includes but is not limited to the planting, transplanting, tubing, precommercial thinning, and thinning of trees and seedlings, the clearing, piling, and disposal of brush and slash, the harvest of Christmas trees, and other related activities.
     (5) "Agricultural employee" means any person who renders personal services to, or under the direction of, an agricultural employer in connection with the employer's agricultural activity.
     (6) ((This chapter shall not apply to employees of the employment security department acting in their official capacity or their agents, nor to any common carrier or full time regular employees thereof while transporting agricultural employees, nor to any person who performs any of the services enumerated in subsection (3) of this section only within the scope of his or her regular employment for one agricultural employer on whose behalf he or she is so acting, unless he or she is receiving a commission or fee, which commission or fee is determined by the number of workers recruited, or to a nonprofit corporation or organization which performs the same functions for its members. Such nonprofit corporation or organization shall be one in which:
     (a) None of its directors, officers, or employees are deriving any profit beyond a reasonable salary for services performed in its behalf.
     (b) Membership dues and fees are used solely for the maintenance of the association or corporation.
     (7)))(a) "Fee" means:
     (((a))) (i) Any money or other valuable consideration paid or promised to be paid for services rendered or to be rendered by a farm labor contractor.
     (((b))) (ii) Any valuable consideration received or to be received by a farm labor contractor for or in connection with any of the services described in subsection (3) of this section, and shall include the difference between any amount received or to be received by him or her, and the amount paid out by him or her for or in connection with the rendering of such services.
     (((8))) (b) "Fee" does not include the cost savings resulting from a vanpool driver, as designated by a transit agency or nonprofit transportation provider, being exempt from contributing to vanpool costs.
     (7) "Director" as used in this chapter means the director of the department of labor and industries of the state of Washington.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 3   A new section is added to chapter 19.30 RCW to read as follows:
     This chapter does not apply to:
     (1) Employees of the employment security department acting in their official capacity or their agents;
     (2) Any common carrier or its full-time regular employees, while transporting agricultural employees;
     (3) Any nonprofit corporation or organization organized under chapter 24.03 RCW, its full-time or part-time regular employees, or its contractors, while transporting agricultural employees;
     (4) Any transit provider authorized under chapter 36.56, 36.57, 36.57A, or 81.112 RCW or RCW 35.58.2721, its full-time or part-time regular employees, or its contractors, while transporting agricultural employees;
     (5) Any person who performs any of the services enumerated in RCW 19.30.010(3) only within the scope of his or her regular employment for one agricultural employer on whose behalf he or she is so acting, unless he or she is receiving a commission or fee, which commission or fee is determined by the number of workers recruited, or to a nonprofit corporation or organization which performs the same functions for its members. Such nonprofit corporation or organization must be one in which:
     (a) None of its directors, officers, or employees are deriving any profit beyond a reasonable salary for services performed in its behalf; and
     (b) Membership dues and fees are used solely for the maintenance of the association or corporation.