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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Garcia, M.P.

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

3/06/07

3/12/07 HM 52/aHLC/aHFL#1

SHORT TITLE Study Farm and Ranch Laborer Workers Comp.

SB

ANALYST Lucero

ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT (dollars in thousands)

FY07 FY08 FY09 3 Year

Total Cost

Recurring or

Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

Total

Minimal

Minimal Non-Recurring Workers’

Compensation

Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

SUMMARY

Synopsis of House Floor Amendment #1

House Floor Amendment #1 to House Memorial 52, as amended by House Labor and Human

Resources Committee, adds additional members to the task force to include farm and ranch

advocates and persons actively engaged in the insurance industry. The amendment also strikes

the requirement for the task force to draft appropriate legislation and instead requires the task

force to report to the appropriate interim legislative committee.

Synopsis of HLC Amendments

The House Labor and Human Resources amendments clarify that the workers’ compensation law

applies to employers of three or more workers excluding the owner

, and requests that the

Director of the Department of Agriculture be added to the list of individuals and organizations

who should receive a copy of the memorial.

Synopsis of Original Bill

House Memorial 52 requests the Workers’ Compensation Administration (WCA) convene a task

force to study whether to extend workers’ compensation coverage for farm and ranch laborers.

The task force is to be composed of equal numbers of persons who are actively engaged as farm

and ranch business owners, persons who are farm and ranch laborers and their advocates and

staff from WCA. It also directs WCA to report to the appropriate interim committee the

conclusions and recommendations of the task force by November 2007 and to draft appropriate

legislation in response to those conclusions.

House Memorial 52/HLC/HF#1 – Page

2

The memorial directs that a copy of the memorial be transmitted to the advisory council on

workers’ compensation and occupational disease disablement compensation, WCA, the secretary

of labor, and the governor.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

This memorial does not contain an appropriation. There may be a slight fiscal impact

attributable to staff time and travel costs.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the Farmworker Justice website:

http://www.fwjustice.org/Health&Saftey/workers_comp.htm

Although agriculture is one of the nation’s most hazardous industries, about half of all states

allow agricultural employers to provide little or no workers compensation coverage for migrant

and seasonal farm workers. There are many obstacles preventing farm workers from securing

needed workers compensation benefits. They include: lack of coverage; a small, but growing

trend for states to reduce or deny benefits to undocumented workers; workers’ reluctance to file

claims for fear of employer retaliation; and the difficulty of finding a doctor who will keep farm

workers off work long enough to allow them to fully recover. Without workers compensation

benefits, however, injured farm workers often forgo needed treatment or go into debt to obtain it.

Many states do not require agricultural employers to provide workers compensation coverage for

migrant and seasonal farm workers. The states are almost evenly split between those that provide

all or most migrant and seasonal farm workers with workers compensation coverage and those

that require little or no coverage for this workforce. Specifically, only 13 states, the District of

Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands require employers to cover seasonal agricultural

workers to the same extent as all other workers. These jurisdictions are: Arizona, California,

Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts, Minnesota,

Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In an

additional 13 states (including Florida and New York), only small farmers are exempt from

providing coverage to their migrant and seasonal farm workers. Moreover, employers who hire

legal temporary foreign workers, under the H-2A visa program, are required to provide workers

compensation insurance or equivalent benefits to their employees.

By contrast, 16 states do not require employers to provide any workers compensation insurance

for migrant or seasonal farm workers. These states are: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia,

Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North

Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. In an additional eight states, coverage is limited

to full-time workers (e.g., Maine), workers in specialty jobs (e.g., South Dakota), or those

employed on large farms (e.g., Rhode Island).

DL/mt:csd