COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
SEptEmBER 2019 • 9
BUSINESS NEWS
Washington works on OT rules
as farms await court ruling
Overtime changes will
affect broad cross section
of state businesses
By DON JENKINS
Capital press
DON JENKINS/CApItAL pRESS
the temple of Justice in Olympia: As Washing-
ton moves to substantially increase minimum
salaries, the state Supreme Court will decide
whether farmworkers should remain exempt
from overtime pay rules.
would affect 250,000 workers by 2026.
But the agency says it doesn’t have enough
information to make some projections.
“Some small businesses may face higher
costs because of this rule making, but there
is no data indicating the magnitude of this
cost,” according to an agency economic
analysis.
According to L&I, the overtime rule has
two purposes: protect employees from being
overworked and encourage employers to
hire more workers.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
For once, the Washington Farm Bureau
isn’t sure what to say about a new rule pro-
posed by a state agency.
The Department of Labor and Indus-
tries plans to make more workers eligi-
ble for overtime pay. Agricultural employ-
ers could be affected, depending on how the
state Supreme Court decides a lawsuit, Mar-
tinez-Cuevas v. DeRuyter Brothers Dairy.
The lawsuit challenges agriculture’s
exemption from paying time-and-a-half for
hours worked beyond 40 in a week. The
exemption applies to farm managers, as well
as field workers. The court will hear the case
Oct. 24. The comment period for L&I’s pro-
posal closed Sept. 6.
“It puts us in a pickle,” Washington Farm
Bureau associate director of government
relations Bre Elsey said. “If we knew we
were going to lose the DeRuyter case, we’d
be in vocal opposition.”
The rule will dictate who can and who
can’t be paid a flat salary, regardless of hours
worked. Currently, Washington follows the
federal standard. A salaried worker must be
paid at least $455 a week, or $23,660 a year.
The Trump administration has proposed
raising the threshold to $35,308 a year. L&I
proposes to go higher and set the thresh-
old at 2.5 times the state’s minimum wage.
Employers must follow the law most favor-
able to workers.
The increase would be phased in over
six years. By 2026, L&I projects that any-
one paid less than $79,872 a year — $1,536
a week — would have to be paid for over-
time. The threshold would rise annually with
inflation.
The overtime requirement would apply to
part owners, if they own less than 20% of
the business.
“It’s an overreach, and we’re opposed
to it,” Washington State Dairy Federation
labor policy analyst Scott Dilley said. “This
is going to have a tremendous impact on all
industries.”
L&I has projected the new threshold
L&I said it doesn’t know of any studies to
indicate how employers will respond. Some
may eliminate overtime and may hire more
workers, but some may “spread the work
to existing employees to replace the lost
hours,” according to the analysis.
“Because of the lack of data, L&I cannot
estimate how many jobs will be created due
to the proposed rule,” the analysis states.
Elsey and Dilley said it’s unknown how
many agricultural employees could be
affected.
In analyzing the rule, L&I put agriculture,
forestry, fishing and hunting into one cate-
gory. The agency reported that 7,208 busi-
nesses in that category employed 122,097
workers and that 165 would be affected by
the rule.
“I think that’s low,” Dilley said. “Farms
are going to want to look at the rules and make
sure they’re following the exemptions.”
Besides a certain income, workers must
have professional, administrative or man-
agement duties to be exempt from overtime
pay. Executives must directly supervise at
least two other full-time employees.
L&I says the current threshold is out-of-
date and unfair to workers.
The Obama administration proposed in
2014 doubling the threshold and adjusting
annually for inflation. The rule was struck
down by a federal judge.
The Washington Farm Bureau and Wash-
ington State Dairy Federation have inter-
vened in the lawsuit against DeRuyter
Brothers Dairy, a Yakima County farm. The
two farm groups say eliminating the agricul-
tural overtime exemption would cost pro-
ducers millions of dollars.
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