Employment: agricultural workers.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific details about the exact language of wildfire smoke training requirements or how the bill will affect farm labor contractors in practice.

Agricultural Worker Employment Safety

AB-332 reduces the required operating period for farm labor contractors to have an affirmative defense against liability for unpaid wages or penalties from three years to one year and expands the definition of 'immediate family member' in successor liability cases.

What This Bill Does

• Reduces the required operating period from three years to one year for farm labor contractors to have an affirmative defense against liability for unpaid wages or penalties owed by a predecessor.
• Expands the definition of 'immediate family member' to include step-parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, half-siblings, and step-grandparents when determining successor liability for unpaid wages or penalties.

Who It Names or Affects

• Farm labor contractors
• Former employees of farm labor contractors

Terms To Know

Affirmative defense

A legal argument that can be used to avoid liability if certain conditions are met.

Immediate family member

Includes close relatives such as parents, children, and now also step-parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, half-siblings, and step-grandparents.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact language for wildfire smoke training requirements.
• It is unclear how these changes will affect specific farm labor contractors in practice.

Official Summary Text

AB 332, as amended, Alanis.
Employment safety:
Employment:
agricultural workers.
Existing law
requires that an employer provide wildfire smoke training in a language and manner readily understandable by employees, taking into account their ethnic and cultural backgrounds and education levels, including the use of pictograms, as necessary.
makes a farm labor contractor successor to any predecessor farm labor contractor that owed wages or penalties to a former employee of the predecessor, whether or not the predecessor was licensed by the Labor Commissioner to carry on the business, activities, or operations of a farm labor contractor, liable for those wages and penalties, if the successor farm labor contractor meets one or more specified criteria including using substantially the same facilities or
workforce to offer substantially the same services as the predecessor. Existing law provides an exception and an affirmative defense to the liability for wages and penalties owed to a former employee of the predecessor farm labor contractor if the farm labor contractor has operated for at least the preceding 3 years, and certain conditions apply. Existing law makes a person who violates farm labor contractor requirements guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by specified fines, or imprisonment in the county jail for not more than 6 months, or both.
This bill would decrease the amount of time that a farm labor contractor would be required to have operated with a valid license in order to have an affirmative defense to liability for wages and penalties owed to a former employee of the predecessor farm labor contractor to a least the preceding year and would make
other related changes.
Existing law also makes a farm labor contractor successor liable for wages and penalties owed to a former employee, as described above, if the successor farm labor contractor is an immediate family member, as defined, of any owner, partner, officer, licensee, or director of the predecessor farm labor contractor or of any person who had a financial interest in the predecessor farm labor contractor.
This bill would expand the definition of “immediate family member” for purposes of the provision described above that makes a farm labor contractor successor liable for wages and penalties owed to a former employee of the predecessor farm labor contractor to include a step-parent, adoptive
parent, foster parent, half-sibling, and step-grandparent. By expanding the requirements placed upon farm labor contractor successors, the violation of which would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to that law.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF