This content outlines various labor laws and protections in California, focusing on agricultural workers, and details regulations surrounding employee eligibility to work in the United States, including the complexities of the I-9 form and E-Verify system.
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unemployment insurance there
there
are lots of things that might fall into
this category disaster unemployment
we've kind of gone through uh
no man's land of that with covid and
and
that has changed things dramatically in
terms of protections
that the federal government in the state
of california have tried to
implement to protect workers trade
readjustment allowances family medical
leave which we've already talked about
all of these things
are are there to protect people
in ways related to health plans and benefits
i'm not going to go over the california
labor code but this these are the chapters
chapters
divisions and chapters within the uh
uh
california labor code you could read
through that and see if there's anything
interesting that you're
wanting to look up um but this is just
one tiny section of the code of uh
uh
regulations within
for laws not the regulations but the laws
laws
related to labor
labor california's
california's agricultural
agricultural
labor relations act
of 1975 describes and protects the
rights of agricultural employees to make
their own decisions about whether or not
they want a union to negotiate with
their employer about their wages hours
and other working conditions so
it allows workers to make their own mind
and own decisions about do i want to be
in a union or not it's up to the worker
and this guaranteed that in california
to the extent that the law is able to
uh so there's a california agricultural
labor relations board
that conducts elections there's
there's
activity that is done together
cooperative and joint activities so farm
workers do not have to belong to a union
to have a right to concerted activity
you can still
try to negotiate or
do things to protect the workers to
to [Music]
[Music]
ensure safe and
and
fair working environment you don't have
to be in a union to do that a union just
makes it
more official
cleaner neater more
easily documented employers on the other
hand do not have to meet the employee's demands
demands
unless those demands are because of some
problem that the employer is not meeting
federal or state
regulations if the employer is falling
short of what's required by law then yes
the employer does have to meet those demands
demands
and there's there's other legal action but
but
if the employees say we want this the employers
employers don't
don't
have to say
say
the act makes it unlawful for an
employer to fire refuse to rehire or
discriminate in any other manner against
an employee because he or she has
supported a union
participated in union activities or has
exercised any of the other rights
protected by the act
and certainly this is some things that
have happened
when i said earlier and i don't know if
you thought badly of me that bad things
happened on both sides well there was a
hell of a lot of intimidation
you talked the wrong way about the wrong thing
thing
you did support
unionization or you didn't support unionization
unionization
the other side might
have a talk with you and that talk might
be painful
and it happened a lot a lot of people
got beat up a lot of people had their cars
cars
damaged or
um scary notes put on their
a lot of bad things happen just leave it
and so this
is actually making it illegal for the employer
employer
to discriminate against any employee who
who
was involved in union activities
now that doesn't necessarily include
illegal activity
effective january 1 2003 the
the
mandatory mediation was implemented for
for employer
employer
employee or union
negotiation so
you can get a mediator to help
if there is
sorry about that interruption
i'm not in a sound studio anyway
anyway um
um
so mediation is just when you have
somebody who's acting as
as
not a judge but
something like a judge they are trying
to read
both sides the needs of both sides and
come to a compromise
now this applies only of 25 employees
during any week of the past year
preceding the filing of the request for mediation
mediation so
so um
um
if they're very tiny companies
again it
doesn't apply
of 2002 there was the agricultural
employee relief fund and
and
essentially if employees are
are
unable to be found for two years any
money that an employer owes that employee
employee
must go into this fund and
and
and i say employee or their uh
uh rightful
rightful
heirs family or heirs
and that happens a lot people just
disappear and they're owed some money
well where does that money go it's put
into a fund that
that
is held by um
um
the government
and so if a company
goes bankrupt or somehow gets away
or is rightfully entitled to
the money and
and
the the
determination the decision is that they
were cheated out of some money and
there's no employer left to take the
money and give to them
well the money comes from this employee
employee
eligibility to work federal law requires
any new hire to establish eligibility to
work in the united states that's the i-9
form i talked about earlier that was
established in the mid-80s
you have to do something to show that
yes this employee has at least made
reasonable effort to show that they are
who they are and eligible to work
sometimes the documentation that they
provide is
questionable at best and there are lots
of people in agriculture who work under
somebody else's social security number
or something else that happens
it's getting harder to happen but it
does happen
immigration and nationality act
prohibits the knowing higher of
individuals who are not authorized to
work in the united states
and unfortunately
with this act who do they go after
the employee who's not eligible to work
and even though there are
rules and consequences enforcement for employers
employers
it's rarely ever
done against an employer certainly if it
is done against an employer the employer
is uh
given the proverbial slap on the wrist and
and
i don't think that's fair i think if the
employer is doing things they shouldn't
be doing against the law
so the department of homeland security
dhs form i-9
is the form you must
complete the
employer completes this form on the
first day of employment employees must certify
certify
their right to work within three days
they must show some minimal documentation
documentation
it can be a driver's license social
security card
um i think social security card is
actually the one
that's required um
by or preferred by most
and used by most but
either one you don't have to show both
just either one driver's license social
security boom done um
um
it is the employee's choice
which one they're going to give you you
can't just say here's my driver's
license no no i want your social
security card no if you give a driver's license
license
that's it game over you did what you
needed to do they have to accept it if
anti-discrimination provision of 86
employers may not request more for
different documents than necessary
they may not reject documents that
appear to be reasonably genuine upon
their face
and you're
highly encouraged not to photocopy or
otherwise document what they gave you
other than to write it down
they provided me a driver's license
it looked okay so you check a box and
then you write down their driver's
license number done they get their
driver's license back some driver's
licenses might look a little
questionable does that picture really
look like them if you photocopy it it
definitely isn't going to look like them
anymore and then
somebody comes in and audits your
records well how could you been
grand central station
anyway you have to accept whatever they
then along comes e-verify
e-verify um
is a new way to document eligibility to work
work
and u.s law only requires that individuals
individuals
demonstrate they're eligible to work and
right now the two options are i9 forms
or e-verify
e-verify is an internet-based system
that allows businesses to determine the
eligibility of their employees to work
in the u.s
e-verify is currently optional under
federal law but is required in some
states not in california at least not yet
yet
and in this case it is the employer's
choice not the employees
so if you go to a job to get a job and
they say we're using e-verify you can't
say well i want to use the i-9 form you can't
can't
if they're doing e-verify
e-verify has some problems
there are
false positives and negatives where
sometimes an employee shows eligible
when they really shouldn't and other
times when they're shown to be
ineligible to work when they
are eligible and that's really
unfortunate because then people who have
no problem they have all the right
documentation just because somebody uh
uh
did something in the past they were
victims of identity theft
the employer cannot hire you because
you're red flagged in the e-verify system
system
and that really bothers me i'm not a big
fan of
the lack of remedy if you are
denied the right to work under e-verify and
some a lot of people i've heard a lot of
stories about people being
caught up primarily due to identity fraud
fraud
problems are identity theft problems
and e-verify prevents them from getting
a job
and now it's your problem you have to
prove and fix the system you have to
prove that you are eligible
under i9
the problem there is that it's really
easy to gain the system and
and
provide false documentation and get
employer employment
but a lot of companies have moved to
e-verify and from the companies that
i've talked to
from their point of view the number of
employees that have been
wrongfully rejected due to a
glitch in the system
is so low that maybe they don't individually
individually
know of a single case in their company
so to them it's not a big deal um
um
say that to the employee who can't find work
work but
but
a lot of companies actually every single
company that i know that went to
e-verify loves it's simple it's fast
it's easily well documented
it gives you really good protection to
show that you've done all you can to
verify that the employee that you just
hired is eligible to work
so employers love it
um with some exceptions
there are employers in ag that are
really concerned that know for a fact
that they have a lot of
employees who would never pass e-verify
i worked for a company
that had um i would argue half
half
of our labor crew
and under e-verify
and with certain labor contractor crews
that is still to this day a huge issue
and so there would need to be something
something
to fix e-verify
to allow
some sort of guest worker program
something to make sure that the
agriculture industry in particular
has the ability to hire people who want
to work
and there are lots of people who do want
to work but they can't
under e-verify
uh so if e-verify became the law of
california not an option
it would be a problem so when i said i
know a lot of companies that have gone
to e-verify and egg well they're more of
the manufacturing companies the
support companies the the suppliers and
the distribution channels not the farms
and i haven't talked to enough people
about that specific question i have no
idea be honest how many people how many
companies that are actually farming
operations use e-verify um
um
but certainly in other
support areas it's getting more and more
common that companies will choose that option
um
farm labor contractors
essential part of california agriculture
these are special businesses that will have
have
uh labor crews for harvesting for field
work of all sorts
thinning lettuce [Music]
[Music]
weeding crews
you name it
and so the farm labor contractors
can supply large numbers of employees
very quickly
and keep those employees very busy by
moving around to different
operations so if i've got a strawberry
harvest operation and i'm picking
strawberries every day maybe i can have
my own labor crew but if i've got
a lettuce operation
operation
i've got a different issue i've got high
high
labor days where i'm thinning lettuce
when i'm harvesting lettuce
and a lot of days where i don't have
enough for the crew to do
i got nothing for the crew to do
so by having labor contractors the
the
workforce moves around in the region
so if you are a labor contractor you
still have all the same requirements as
any other business tax reporting you
have to provide insurance
bonding is providing money so if
anything goes wrong with your company
show that you are financially
capable of providing
providing
restitution or fixing
what problems occurred
safety not only
worker safety to protect your employees
public safety environmental safety
and food safety i mean all of those things
things
your company needs to be properly
registered with the state and county uh
properly licensed
and you have to make sure that you're
following all state and federal
laws and regulations
what are the grower responsibilities the
grower must inspect the contractor's
license if you hire somebody you need to
be shown their license and keep a copy
of their license on file and make sure
the license is active and recognized
with the state's labor commissioner so
you've done your due diligence to know
that they are a legal
operating labor contractor
and you have three business days in
which to do this um
um
there's something called a 1099
miscellaneous where you pay the
contractor and then the contractor in turn
turn
pays the employees so you hire the
contractor for
you know forty thousand dollars to do
this work for you and then the contractor
contractor pays
pays
35 000
as wages to the employees taxes and
other things and sticks five in their
pocket for
um division of labor standards
enforcement often deems farm labor
contractors as firms that manage
california agriculture land so
if you're a vineyard management company
you may fall under the
the
labor contract rules even though you're
not doing large labor in the same sense
you're still
following under that category if you are
the management operation
a hired for gun so to speak hired company
company
to manage a vineyard
similar to what i mentioned before there
is a labor commissioner's farm labor
contractor fund
so damages include wages and interest
and any losses by an employee proved to
result from violation of the law so the
labor contractor doesn't do what they're
supposed to do and
and
an employee is left not getting
getting
reimbursed what they are owed
then this farm labor contractor fund
can turn around and make that employee
whole give them what they should have gotten
gotten
migrant and seasonal agricultural worker
protection act
i think the name says
a lot there are lots of ag employees who
move with the
seasons move with the crops
and that made them extremely vulnerable
to abuse by
employers and labor contractors and
there's a lot of history of migrant workers
workers being
being
victims of this particular
hard to
manage hard to enforce population of
workers and so the mspa
is created to try to protect those at
least create some rules where if an
employee comes forward
they have some
and so here are a number of websites and
and other
other
places to look for resources our own
federal congress the legislative branch
of the federal government department of labor
labor
ag relations board department of
industrial relations etc
bells.net this is a private organization
that helps employers
the farm employers labor service i've
success over the years finding
information that i wanted
about worker safety about all kinds of
different things heat illness prevention
fels.net is a
has been at least in the past for me
a very useful site
western grower association
and their
as the name implies western grower their
western united states the grower shipper
is right here in salinas
that is it
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