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Farm Labor Contractors (SB 1087) Fact Sheetll (800) 331-8877 or visit 
 
SB 1087 was introduced by Senator William Monning (D-Santa Barbara) in response to media and academic reports of allegations of sexual abuse of female farm workers when employed by Farm Labor Contractors.  The bill also makes other changes to state law on licensing and training of farm labor contractors, and expands sexual harassment training mandates for FLC supervisors and workers hired by FLCs.

Who is covered by SB 1087?

Any California-licensed Farm Labor Contractor (FLC) will be impacted by SB 1087.  Other types of businesses that will be impacted by SB 1087 will be custom farming/harvesting companies, vineyard service companies, and any other employer providing workers to perform agricultural work.

What Does SB 1087 Do?

·         Requires applicants for a new or renewal FLC license to attest that their supervisorial employees received two hours of annual sexual harassment prevention  training (as compared to bi-annual supervisor training required for supervisors of employers with at least 50 employees in other industries);
·         Requires applicants for an FLC license or license renewal to attest that agricultural workers hired by the FLC were trained on sexual harassment prevention at the time of hire and at least every two years thereafter;
·         Forbids issuance of an FLC license to any person who has committed sexual harassment within the last three years, or any person applying for an FLC license who employs a supervisor who has committed sexual harassment within the last three years; the law also provides a “safe harbor” allowing applicants to receive a license by attesting they have not committed sexual harassment, or that supervisors in their employ have not committed sexual harassment, within the last three years;
·         Increases the FLC licensing fee to $600 (currently $500) as of January 1, 2015;
·         Adds knowledge of prevention and identification of sexual harassment to the examination taken to obtain an FLC license;
·         Increases the required annual continuing education training for FLCs from 8 hours to 9 hours, one hour of which must pertain to sexual harassment;
·         Requires a grower hiring an FLC to obtain from the FLC records of the FLC workers’ net wages, gross wages, total hours worked, and total hourly and piece-rate earnings for each worker and to retain those records for three years after the contract ends;
·         Increases penalties for engaging in unlicensed FLC work from a range of $1000 to $5000 to a minimum of $10,000.

How Will SB 1087 Work?

·         SB 1087 is intended to improve education and training of FLCs their supervisors and farm workers, particularly with respect to sexual harassment, protecting female farm workers from sexual abuse;
·         Allows the Labor Commissioner to deny or revoke a license to a sexual predator, or an FLC who employs such a person.

Complying with SB 1087
·         FLCs will be required to train supervisors annually for two hours on sexual harassment prevention;
·         FLCs will be able to avoid revocation or denial of a license through attestation of innocence of sexual harassment;
·         FLCs will satisfy the time-of-hire worker training requirement by training them on basic information provided by sexual harassment prevention educational materials provided by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (FEHA).