Washington Adopts Food Production Worker Leave Program

Below the Washington COVID-19 Meals Manufacturing Staff Paid Depart Program, no meals manufacturing employer in Washington could function from August 18, 2020, to November 13, 2020, until the employer gives its staff with paid depart for sure qualifying occasions.

The Program was created by Governor Jay Inslee underneath Proclamation 20-67.

Lined Employers

Proclamation 20-67 applies to meals manufacturing employers that function orchards, fields, dairies, fruit- and vegetable-packing warehouses, meat and seafood processors and packers, sure farm labor contractors, and different specified industries.

Lined Staff

Proclamation 20-67 covers meals manufacturing staff, together with, however not restricted to, Washington-based staff, seasonal or migrant staff, and short-term international staff who’re lawfully current in america to carry out agricultural labor or companies of a short lived or seasonal nature.

The Proclamation doesn’t cowl an employer’s quick members of the family or staff who’re topic to and offered depart underneath the federal Households First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). To be lined, staff shouldn’t have to be labeled as an “worker” by the employer.

Paid Depart

Below the Proclamation, employers should present staff with the next paid depart:

Full-time staff will obtain as much as 80 hours, besides employers should substitute this paid depart with another paid sick depart offered (like Washington statutory paid sick depart) if that depart is straight away and equally accessible.

Half-time staff will obtain paid depart equal to the hours they’re usually scheduled to work in the course of the previous two-week interval.

If staff work a variable variety of hours, employers should present them 14 instances the common variety of hours the employee labored every day within the interval previous the date of paid depart.

Every hour of the paid depart should be compensated at a charge equal to $430 for 40 hours, as much as a most of $860 for 80 hours.

Qualifying Occasions

Staff are entitled to make use of the paid depart if they’re:

Topic to a federal, state, or native quarantine or isolation order associated to COVID-19;

Suggested by a healthcare official or supplier to self-quarantine or self-isolate as a result of issues associated to or a constructive prognosis of COVID-19;

Prohibited from working as a result of well being issues associated to the potential transmission of COVID-19; or

Experiencing COVID-19 signs and is looking for a medical prognosis.

Retaliation; Penalties

Employers could not retaliate in opposition to, or take antagonistic employment actions in opposition to, a employee or worker for exercising or looking for to train rights underneath the Proclamation.

Any violations of the Proclamation are topic to prison penalties (as is the case with all the Governor’s current Proclamations).