Bill aims to stop farm-labor scam in California

The Californian.com    July 6, 2013   

The practice of unscrupulous labor contractors owing farmworkers wages and abruptly shutting down the business to duck their obligations, only to reopen under a new name, will be stopped if a proposed law hammered out between farm interests and a Central Coast lawmaker reaches the governor’s desk.

Senate Bill 168, authored by state Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, would hold any successor of a farm-labor contractor liable for the first contractor’s owed wages, regardless of whether the original contractor was licensed or not.

It has passed the California Senate and one committee of the Assembly.

It is now waiting to be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Monning took up the bill on behalf of California Rural Legal Assistance, which says there have been numerous incidents in which contractors shut down their businesses without paying owed wages and then start up again with a relative or business partner applying for a state license through the California Labor Commission.

A message left at the CRLA Salinas office was not immediately returned Friday, but a Senate analysis includes an example of the practice.

“The proponents specifically point out the experience of one family for which CRLA is trying to collect lost wages but the [farm-labor contractor] has reorganized no less than six times — each time with a different name and different family member or associate holding the license,” according to the analysis.

Initially the bill drew the ire of farm interests up and down California, including the Monterey County Farm Bureau. From the farm bureau’s perspective, the original bill was overly broad and would have penalized legitimate farm-labor contractors who take over prior businesses from sham operations, even if the new contractor had nothing to do with the predecessor’s shenanigans.

“An innocent and unaware entity or individual could be unfairly strapped with the liability of a prior bad actor,” opponents of the bill wrote to the Senate.

So farm interests huddled with Monning to define and narrow the scope of what it means to be a “successor.” Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, said in a newsletter issued Friday morning that Monning accepted an amendment to narrow the circumstances under which a successor could be held responsible for wages not paid to workers who worked for an errant contractor.

The amendment added to the bill specific language that must show a direct connection between the sham contractor and the new entity.

“Sen. Monning is willing to discuss further revisions to the bill in response to our concerns,” Groot wrote.