A case for the robots - Washington courts are putting farmworkers out of work
In an unsurprising, yet disappointing ruling from the Washington state Supreme Court, agricultural employers will have another hurtle facing them. The Court issued their opinion in Carranza v. Dovex, making it difficult for agricultural employers to use compensation systems like piece-rate pay.
The narrow 5-4 decision will further complicate how farmers pay their employees and shows how large the urban and rural divide is on the court. Breaktime rest, piece-rate pay, class action lawsuits, and agricultural overtime are all issues that Washington farmers face. The barrage of lawsuits that Washington farmers are experiencing reminds me of a testimony to the House Agriculture committee in 2017 on Senate Bill 5720.
The testifier, Rosalinda Guillen with Community to Community said, “We are not machines.”
Unfortunately, if the relationship between farmer and employee becomes unstable, risky, and unpredictable, agricultural workers will eventually be replaced by machines - hurting farmworker families and rural communities.
Some claim mechanization is unfair. Failure to mechanize, however, is illogical when the threat of labor lawsuits looms over many farmers despite their effort to follow the law. This is where Carranza v. Dovex comes in.
Dovex is a fruit grower and packer who has been using workweek averaging, which divides the total income of the week by the hours worked to guarantee all workers make at least minimum wage when picking on a piece-rate basis. Piece-rate payment compensates a worker based on their productive work rewarding efficiency and allowing workers to set their own work goals.
A video from the Washington State Tree Fruit Association documents farmworkers who state that 90 to 95 percent of workers prefer to work on this type of piece-rate system. Workers state that the flexibility and opportunity to set their own salary goals are key reasons they prefer the piece-rate system.
Under piece-rate payment, the employer is obligated under Washington’s Minimum Wage Act to “pay to each of his or her employees who has reached the age of eighteen years wages at a rate of not less than [the applicable minimum wage] per hour.”
Under this guidance, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries policies recommended workweek averaging to guide employers on the proper way to compensate employees. Unfortunately for Washington farmers who were following the guidance of L&I, the majority’s opinion gave no deference to L&I’s policies and left employers vulnerable to lawsuits.
Instead, the majority’s opinion will require employers to pay separate wages for different tasks that must be compensated on an hourly basis and can no longer use workweek averaging. So grab your stopwatches and start clocking – but first employers have to wait to find out what is and is not piece-rate work.
Additionally, the “practical effect of the majority’s holding is to accept the plaintiffs’ plea to transform the MWA into California minimum wage law, despite the fact that federal courts have recently rejected arguments to do so.” California state law explicitly does not allow work week averaging and their minimum wage law does not use the word “rate” which is included in the Washington MWA.
In surprisingly pointed language, the dissenting opinion concludes that “The majority’s reinterpretation of RCW 49.46.020 charts an entirely new direction for minimum wage compliance in Washington. Everyone, including DLI, will have to revise years of policy and practice, and the legislature will have to further consider whether statutory provisions that interact with RCW 49.46.020 need to be amended.”
The confusion and uncertainty evident within the Carranza v. Dovex case perfectly illustrates how risky it is to employ workers as a farmer. Even by following the plain language of the statute and the policies of the administering agencies, farmers are still vulnerable to costly lawsuits, that slowly change state law to advance the priorities of special interest groups.
Unfortunately for farmworkers and their families, rural communities, and farmers the relationship between farmer and employee is slowly eroding. It is practical for businesses to mechanize their operations when the cost is lower, and the risk is lower. In fact, this is already happening in Washington state and will likely happen faster as the courts continue making a case for the robots.