December 4, 2015
CapitalPress.com
5
Giant Idaho potato tour could roll on well past 2016
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Sakuma,
workers
near
deal on
lingering
pay issue
Sides send rest
break agreement to
judge for approval
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Washington state berry
company Sakuma Brothers
Farms has tentatively agreed
to pay $87,160 to compen-
sate pickers for rest breaks in
2014, resolving an issue left
over from a federal class-ac-
tion lawsuit that changed
agricultural wage practices
statewide.
Lawyers for Sakuma and
the workers notified U.S. Dis-
trict Judge Marsha Pechman
in Seattle in writing Monday
of the agreement, which must
be approved by the court.
Approximately 480 peo-
ple did piece-rate work for
Sakuma in 2014, according
to a plaintiff attorney, Seattle
lawyer Marc Cote.
The company will also
pay workers 12 percent inter-
est on the back wages.
The two sides also re-
ported that they are still ne-
gotiating how much Sakuma
will pay the plaintiffs in legal
fees.
Two farmworkers sued
Sakuma in 2013 alleging sev-
eral wage and workplace vi-
olations, including failing to
provide paid rest beaks.
The Burlington, Wash.,
company denied any wrong-
doing, but agreed to an
out-of-court settlement. A
$500,000 pool will be shared
by 407 workers. The two lead
plaintiffs received $3,000
each, and their legal repre-
sentatives received $344,000
in fees and expenses.
The workers’ attorneys
said the payout was appar-
ently the largest class-action
settlement involving farm-
workers in state history.
It didn’t, however, resolve
whether piece-rate farm-
workers must be compensat-
ed separately for 10-minute
rest breaks.
Pechman referred the
question to the state Supreme
Court, which ruled last July
in favor of the workers.
The decision led the
state Department of Labor
and Industries to instruct
all employers to pay agri-
cultural piece-rate workers
the amount they could have
made by working through
rest breaks.
By 2015, Sakuma had al-
ready changed its wage struc-
ture, but the Supreme Court’s
ruling meant the company
had to go back and negoti-
ate a settlement for 2014 rest
breaks.
Sakuma attorney Adam
Belzberg said Tuesday that
calculating the back pay was
fairly straightforward. “We
basically showed how the
math worked,” he said.
Arriving at an agreement
over legal fees may be more
difficult and require the
court’s intervention, he said.
A total of 923 work-
ers were initially eligi-
ble to share in the original
$500,000 settlement. Plain-
tiff attorneys tried to contact
workers through meetings,
door-to-door visits, mail-
ings and radio advertising on
Spanish-language stations in
California, according to court
records.
A relatively high percent-
age filed claims, Cote said of
the 407 workers. “It’s an ex-
traordinary number for a case
that involved migrant farm-
workers.”
BOISE — The Big Ida-
ho Potato Truck will roll on
next year and possibly well
beyond that.
Idaho Potato Commission
board members have unoffi-
cially given the commission
their blessing to continue the
promotion beyond 2016.
To celebrate its 75th an-
niversary in 2012, the IPC
built a gigantic potato and
hauled it around the country.
It brought to life an iconic
Idaho postcard that shows an
enormous potato on the back
of a truck.
The truck has toured the
nation for four years now
and IPC commissioners have
already approved a 2016
tour.
During a recent meeting,
commissioners informally
asked the public relations
firms that handle the promo-
tion to attempt to quantify its
value.
But they were also clear
they believe the promotion is
a big benefit to the industry
and they want it to continue.
“I’m sure the day will
come when it will lose its
luster but until that day
comes, I say let’s run it till
the tires fall off,” said IPC
commissioner Lynn Wilcox,
Submitted photo
The Big Idaho Potato Truck is shown on a Times Square billboard on April 23, 2015. Idaho Potato
Commission commissioners have unofficially given their blessing for the truck promotion to continue
into the future.
a fresh potato supplier. “The
longer it’s out there, the bet-
ter it gets.”
Other IPC commissioners
told the Capital Press later
they feel the same way.
“It’s done a great job
promoting the Idaho potato
brand,” said Aberdeen grow-
er and IPC member Ritchey
Toevs. ”It’s probably never
sold a potato but it promotes
the Idaho potato brand. I
don’t think anything that
we’ve done can touch the
amount of PR we get from
that investment.”
“I’m firmly behind it,”
said Oakley grower and IPC
commissioner Randy Hardy.
“Idaho has to keep putting
its name out there.”
Farmers Ending
Hunger
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The commission spends
about $750,000 a year on the
big potato truck promotion.
The amount of exposure
the truck gets as it winds its
way through dozens of ma-
jor cities and approximate-
ly 22,000 miles each year
is huge, said Sue Kennedy,
director of public relations
for Evans, Hardy and Young,
which handles the promotion
along with Foerstel Design.
While the groups will
try to assign a value to the
promotion, it’s impossible to
track the amount of exposure
the giant potato gets on so-
cial media or while driving
along the highway, she said.
After four years, “The in-
terest we see is not waning,
at all,” she said.
IPC President and CEO
Frank Muir said psycholog-
ical research has shown that
people connect with brands
at a young age “and they
never forget that emotion-
al experience they had with
that brand.”
“What we’re trying to
do with the truck is make it
something where people will
never forget when they saw
that truck,” he said. “We’re
going to do our best (to put
a value on it) but it’s hard to
measure those things.”
Coca-Cola and Pepsi are
two of the most recognized
brands in the world but they
still spend millions of dol-
lars on advertising every
year “because they recog-
nize that if you stopped ad-
vertising within one genera-
tion, you’re forgotten,” Muir
said. “That would happen to
Idaho potatoes if we stopped
advertising and we’re not
about to let that happen.”
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