EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER
Friday, February 22, 2019
Volume 92, Number 8
CapitalPress.com
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PRESSURE
DON JENKINS/Capital Press
An American fl ag waves over the Temple of
Justice in Olympia. A Washington Supreme
Court ruling last May opened the door to
dozens of class action lawsuits over piece
rate pay for orchard workers.
Washington State Supreme Court ruling opens door for
dozens of lawsuits challenging how orchard workers are paid
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
AKIMA, Wash. — A Washington Supreme Court ruling on regarding
piece-rate pay last spring unleashed an avalanche of lawsuits against
most of the state’s tree fruit companies. More than 50 class-action
lawsuits have been fi led against individual companies. Most compa-
nies of any size have been targeted. Claims for double-pay go back
three years, and damages and attorney fees range into the millions of dollars. The
ruling — and the lawsuits it spawned — make the future of piece-rate pay in the
state uncertain.
Y
Piece rate refers to paying workers for
how much fruit they pick instead of pay-
ing them by the hour. It’s been used for
decades. Workers say they like it because
they make more money. Growers like it
because they say it’s the most economical
pay method. They say the loss of it would
ROBERTO CASTILLO
increase their costs.
“It’s been around a long time because
it has worked. It’s a problem when rules
of the road get changed by court action
that’s retroactive and of immediate effect
See Pay, Page 13
“I’M A SUPERVISOR, BUS DRIVER AND TRACTOR DRIVER NOW DURING HARVEST, SO I GET $15 AN
HOUR. I USED TO PICK APPLES AND CHERRIES AND PREFER PIECE RATE BECAUSE IT’S MORE MONEY.”
Roberto Castillo, orchard worker for 27 years.
Dairies deal with blizzard losses
Blizzard-killed cows top 1,800
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
SUNNYSIDE, Wash. — Most of the car-
casses of 1,810 dairy cows that died in a Feb. 9
blizzard have been dealt with but owners will be
coping with fi nancial losses for months to come.
“It will take some guys months to recover
because some of them were already operating
at break-even,” said Steve George, Yakima area
issues manager for the Washington State Dairy
Federation. He said he hasn’t heard of any going
out of business, yet.
An initial estimate was 1,677 dead cows but
the fi nal tally is approximately 1,810 with prob-
ably several hundred others being sold for beef
because of frozen udders and extremities, George
said. Effects from that can take up to a month to
be known, he said.
At $2,000 per head, total cow loss will be
around $4 million, and that doesn’t count lost
milk production.
George said he doesn’t know of anyone
See Cows, Page 13
Courtesy of Jason Sheehan
Cows rest comfortably at Jason Sheehan’s dairy near Sunnyside, Wash., on
Feb. 11. Blizzard conditions Feb. 9 caused the deaths of more than 1,800
dairy cows in the area.
Canola debate spills into legislative arena
Bill would extend 500-acre limit on planting crop
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Negotiations over canola restric-
tions in Oregon’s Willamette Val-
ley have spilled into the legisla-
tive arena with the introduction of a
bill limiting annual plantings to 500
acres.
Canola acreage in the valley was
capped at 500 acres by lawmakers
in 2013 after a dispute over how the
crop should be regulated, but that
limit was set to expire this year.
The Oregon Department of
Agriculture is currently planning
to implement new rules for canola
production before the 500-acre
limit ends in July.
The agency had submitted
options for regulating canola in the
region to lawmakers last Novem-
ber based on a study by Oregon
State University, which found the
crop didn’t pose greater risks than
related species grown for specialty
seed.
While some of those regulatory
alternatives would have required
new legal authority for ODA —
such as creating a public “pinning”
system to avoid cross-pollination
— the agency isn’t pursuing such
proposals during the 2019 legisla-
tive session.
During a Feb. 19 legislative
hearing, the House Committee on
Agriculture and Land Use intro-
duced a bill that would extend the
500-acre limit indefi nitely while
See Canola, Page 13
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