Wage Order 14 - Agricultural Occupations - MASTW14
Compliance Alert: The preorder version of this California Wage Order poster will reflect increases to minimum wage and meal and lodging rates effective January 1, 2024. This will require an updated posting on that date.
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Description
California’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) regulates wages and hours of nonexempt employees — requiring all California employers to post at least 1 of the 17 Wage Orders in each workplace for employees to view — specific to the industry or occupation it covers.
CalChamber’s laminated 27.5” x 25.5” English poster and 27.5” x 23” Spanish poster each combines the multiple pages of Wage Order 14 into one convenient poster. These posters are recyclable.
Specific Industry
Wage Order 14 regulates wages, hours and working conditions in Agricultural Occupations.
Wage Order 14 covers agricultural occupations related to the maintenance of soil, buildings and machinery that constitute the basic farm facilities and to the cultivation and handling of farm commodities up through harvest, including field packing and transportation to the place of first processing or distribution. Employees in these occupations can work for the grower, for a farm labor contractor or for an organization providing agricultural services.
“Agricultural occupations” mean any of the following described occupations:
- Preparation, care and treatment of farm land, pipeline or ditches, including leveling for agricultural purposes, plowing, discing and fertilizing soil
- Sowing and planting any agricultural or horticultural commodity
- Care of any agricultural or horticultural commodity. “Care” includes cultivation, irrigation, weed control, thinning, heating, pruning or tying, fumigating, spraying and dusting
- Harvesting any agricultural or horticultural commodity, including picking, cutting, threshing, mowing, knocking off, field chopping, bunching, baling, balling, field packing and placing in field containers or in the vehicle in which the commodity will be hauled and transportation on the farm or to the place of first processing or distribution
- Assembly and storage of any agricultural or horticultural commodity, including loading, road siding, banking, stacking, binding and piling
- Raising, feeding and managing livestock, furbearing animals, poultry, fish, mollusks and insects, including herding, housing, hatching, milking, shearing, handling eggs and extracting honey
- The harvesting of fish, as defined by Section 45 of the Fish and Game Code, for commercial sale
- Conserving, improving or maintaining the farm and its tools and equipment
Farm Employees and Other Agricultural Occupations
Wage Order 14 covers agricultural occupations related to the maintenance of soil, buildings and machinery that constitute the basic farm facilities and to the cultivation and handling of farm commodities up through harvest, including field packing and transportation to the place of first processing or distribution. Employees in these occupations may work for the grower, for a farm labor contractor or for a company providing agricultural services.
Wage Order 14 does not cover all farm employees. If the grower has a packing or processing operation under Wage Order 8 or Wage Order 13, which are industry orders that cover handling operations after harvest, all of the support personnel on the farm and the packing house workers would fall under the industry order. These include clerical employees and drivers, for example. If there is not a Wage Order 8 or Wage Order 13 operation, the white collar workers would usually fall under Wage Order 4, but there are other possibilities. For example, if a grower operates a produce store or retail nursery substantial and distinct enough to constitute a separate mercantile business, Wage Order 7 would cover all of the employees connected with it in any way.
Although farm employers do often engage in various enterprises, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement suggests that you should make every effort to limit the number of applicable Wage Orders to two, if possible—either the two occupation Wage Orders, 14 and 4, or Wage Order 14 and the industry order that best reflects the main purpose of your nonfarm operations.
Commercial Agricultural Services
Organizations providing commercial agricultural services employ some individuals who work on farms in agricultural occupations who fall under Wage Order 14, such as tractor drivers, etc. If the organization is in the business of selling chemicals, irrigation systems, etc., its other employees fall under Wage Order 7, Mercantile Industry. However, some organizations only contract to provide the service, so their support employees fall under Wage Order 4, Professional, Technical, Clerical, Mechanical and Similar Occupations.
CalChamber's free Wage Order Wizard helps you determine which of the 17 Wage Orders you need to post (may be more than one) so you can comply with wage and hour laws in California.