FRESNO, Calif. — California labor officials have issued civil penalties to an employer that fired a group of farmworkers it misclassified as independent contractors; labor experts say the landmark decision could have a “profound” impact on the agriculture industry.
The July 28 decision by the Agricultural Labor Relations Board resulted from a complaint filed by Marisol Jimenez, a farmworker on California’s Central Coast who was fired in 2017 alongside five other workers after raising concerns about not receiving proper paystubs with their weekly paychecks.
The ALRB — the state agency tasked with enforcing the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, California’s 1975 law that provides labor rights to the state’s agricultural employees, found the workers were “unlawfully terminated” as well as “willfully misclassified” by Cinagro Farms, Inc., a Ventura County-based farm that grows kale, lettuce, radishes, cilantro, and parsley.
