H-3797              _______________________________________________

                                                   HOUSE BILL NO. 2690

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                               51st Legislature                              1990 Regular Session

By Representatives Prentice and Vekich

Read first time 1/19/90 and referred to Committee on Commerce & Labor.

AN ACT Relating to farm labor contractors; and amending RCW 19.30.010.

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

        Sec. 1.  Section 1, chapter 392, Laws of 1955 as amended by section 1, chapter 280, Laws of 1985 and RCW 19.30.010 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) "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 (3) 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.

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