Hiring Seasonal Workers. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.
It is getting to be that time of year with the orchards in bloom that many producers will be looking to hire extra labor and Dan Fazio with Washington Farm Bureau says they are trying to help.
FAZIO: We're running a series of workshops on hiring seasonal workers at nine locations throughout the state during the week of May 3rd. They're going to be super workshops. We're going to have L&I there, ESD, Farm Bureau people talking about what you should do when you hire seasonal workers. Safety issues, orientation issues. This is all spurned by the federal Department of Labor is getting very aggressive on farmers and they're going to be doing inspections statewide.
Fazio says that they will be checking your hiring process to make sure you are doing it correctly and they are doing these workshops to help you prepare.
FAZIO: We've obtained a checklist of the items that the Department of Labor is looking for and we're obviously going to go into a lot more detail than the Department of Labor inspections but if people attend these seminars they will be well prepared for if they should be inspected by the federal Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division.
For more information on these workshops go online to the Washington Farm Bureau's website or call Farm Bureau.
FAZIO: We had a little bit of a tough interaction up in Okanagan County last year where the agents entered farm property without search warrants or permission or giving any kind of notice to the farmers and that's not going to happen again this year. Farmers are going to be well prepared if they attend these workshops.
That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
