On the opening day of the 2026 Legislative Session, Senate Bill 6045 was introduced in the Senate Labor Committee by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña. According to a press release from her office, the bill, “… ensures these workers have the same fundamental labor protections and collective bargaining rights as workers in other industries.”
The implications of the press release, and SB 6045, are that all people “engaged or permitted by an agricultural employer to work on a farm, and … engaged in the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distributing of: agricultural produce; meat and fish products; or perishable foods” are not currently given “fundamental labor protections.” That is not true.
The bill extends the following protections to agricultural employees in Washington state:
- Spousal immunity,
- Attorney-client privilege,
- Parent-child privilege,
- Confidentiality of confession, or other religious counsel,
- Doctor-patient confidentiality, and
- Peer support person confidentiality.
All these protections for all people in Washington state already exist and do not need duplication.
If agricultural employees have experienced violations of any of our state’s existing protections, they should seek counsel to see their employers punished to the fullest extent possible. All employees, regardless of status or seniority, should feel safe and comfortable in the workplace.
The bill also proposes the establishment of “collective bargaining rights” for all agricultural employees – except those working in the cannabis industry, where collective bargaining was established during last year’s legislative session. Under the proposal, agricultural employees would have the ability to form a union with a card check system but no protection via a secret ballot election. Secret ballot elections ensure that signed union cards are real and every person participating in a union is 1) doing so willingly and 2) a representative is chosen by the majority of people without coercion. Additionally, union members would be allowed to strike for up to three months before being required to enter arbitration with their employer.
Under Washington state law – the “Little Norris-LaGuardia Act” (RCW 49.32.020) – all workers, including agricultural employees, have the right to “discuss and work together on workplace issues, including voluntary unionization.” Much like the list of protections the bill “offers” to agricultural employees, adding an unstable version of unionization in our state is both unnecessary and potentially detrimental.
The bill proposes giving the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) jurisdiction to supervise the new agricultural employment union, but PERC would lack the authority or reach to monitor a critical component of the organization process: card-check. Many of the agricultural employees in Washington state are hired from outside the state, exposing workers to coercion from untruthful recruiters abroad. Once those employees have legally arrived for employment, they have already signed a union membership card under duress. SB 6045 provides no mechanism to protect workers from these practices as it “limits questions concerning representation” and does not allow for agricultural employees to leave the union.
For most employers in a manufacturing or retail environment, a three-month strike would be challenging to recover from. For agricultural employers, a three-month strike could be insurmountable.
Consider the timeline of fresh produce on a small scale, first. When individuals raise a single tomato plant or a handful of berry plants for their own consumption, the difference between a bowl of delicious food to eat and snacks for the local wildlife is a matter of a few days. If produce is not picked quickly, a season of work goes to waste. Imagine that potential waste inflated to encompass an entire orchard or farm the size of a city block.
The long-term implications of a strike are difficult to predict or imagine with certainty. However, there is something we know for certain. In 2024, the agricultural community in Washington state finished the year with negative $295 million in take-home pay, meaning agricultural employers were upside down in operating expenses. The agricultural community does not have the funds needed to weather a strike.
The best defense of agricultural employees is to enforce the rules of employment that currently exist. Senate bill 6045 is presenting “fixes” for problems that do not need more than enforcement of existing laws.
