The great resource, FarmCommons.org, recently released some updates on the latest on farm employment law. We will continue to share these updates with you as we get them!
Farm Employment Laws: Changing faster than the weather
Connecticut doubles penalty for underpayment of wages. Legislators in Connecticut recently passed a bill that allows underpaid workers to sue employers for twice the amount of their underpaid wages. The double-wage penalty is available if an employer didn’t take any proactive steps to determine how much they were legally obligated to pay their employees. The new, higher penalty is meant to motivate businesses to look into the law: ignorance isn’t bliss anymore!
Federal judge overturns internship ruling. Determining whether your intern is a regular employee or not for the purposes of minimum wage law just got even more complicated. In recent webinars, I mentioned a federal court ruling that found an intern who was enrolled in school and receiving credit for the position was an employee and deserving of the minimum wage. That decision was overturned on appeal in July because the judge felt the lower court was too deferential to the federal government’s argument. Now, that doesn’t mean farmers are safe as long as their intern is receiving college credit. But…they might be safer than they were last month. The plot thickens, as more cases and appeals are likely.
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