ENGROSSED SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 6261

BySenate Labor & Commerce (originally sponsored by Senators McCoy, Saldaña, Conway, Kuderer, Hasegawa, Wilson, C., Das, Nguyen, and Keiser)

AN ACT Relating to strengthening the farm labor contractor system by removing an exemption for nonprofits, prohibiting retaliation and the use of farm labor contractors in certain circumstances, and establishing liability for related violations; and reenacting and amending RCW 19.30.010.

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

Sec. 1. RCW 19.30.010 and 2017 c 253 s 1 are each reenacted and amended to read as follows:

The definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

(1) "Agricultural employee" means any person who renders, or has rendered, personal services to, or under the direction of, an agricultural employer in connection with the employer's agricultural activity.

(2) "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.

(3) "Director" as used in this chapter means the director of the department of labor and industries of the state of Washington.

(4) "Farm labor contracting activity" means recruiting, soliciting, employing, supplying, transporting, or hiring agricultural employees.

(5) "Farm labor contractor" means any person, or his or her agent or subcontractor, who, for a fee, performs any farm labor contracting activity. "Farm labor contractor" does not include a person performing farm labor contracting activity solely for a small forestland owner as defined in RCW 76.09.450 who receives services of no more than two agricultural employees at any given time.

(6) "Fee" means:

(a) 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) 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 (4) of this section, and shall include the difference between any amount received or to be received by him, and the amount paid out by him for or in connection with the rendering of such services.

(7) "Person" includes any individual, firm, partnership, association, corporation, or unit or agency of state or local government.

(8) 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 (4) 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:

(b) Membership dues and fees are used solely for the maintenance of the association or corporation)).

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