This morning agency representatives and professionals hosted a session at the Vermont State House devoted to understanding labor laws for agricultural employers. Agricultural employers cannot expect to be experts on these topics but they must be aware of the important issues and understand when it is essential to contact specialists to assess specific situations.

Today’s topics included key provisions of the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and an introduction to potential exemptions for agricultural businesses. It was explained that the Wage and Hour determinations are based on a week of work. So if you have an agricultural employee working 38 hours in the field picking strawberries and that same worker spends just 3 hours in the farm retail store running a register…that entire week could be considered non-agricultural and subject to FLSA (wages and overtime were the most common discussion topics). Notice I said “could be” as it could vary based on if the store sells strawberry jam or if other products from other farms are resold in the store. There are a variety of agricultural exemptions that should be understood thoroughly to ensure a business remains in compliance with the law.

And for the details… here are several of the resources that were referenced.  US Department of Labor Fact Sheets: #71 Interships, #13 Relationship Determinations, #26 H-2-A, #12 AG Employees, #14 Coverage, #50 Trasportation, #49 Migrant and Seasonals, #40/43 Youth.

To access these sheets, click this link to the DOL Wage and Hour Fact Sheets online.

The US Department of Labor has a district office in New Hampshire that can be contacted at information listed here: http://www.dol.gov/whd/america2.htm#Vermont