State and federal agencies have announced a program to coordinate their compliance efforts in industries which have a history of labor law violations and low-paying jobs. The Targeted Industries Program (TIP) links enforcement arms of the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), the Employment Development Department, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
The program will initially target the state's garment manufacturing and agricultural industries, according to DIR Director Lloyd W. Aubry, Jr. "TIP will be an effective way to maximize enforcement resources in these targeted industries," Aubry said. "It will assure a comprehensive enforcement and education effort among government agencies that share responsibility over employers and employees involved in these industries without creating new and duplicative bureaucracies to do the job."
Beginning in November 1992, the DOL Wage and Hour Division and the DIR Division of Labor Standards Enforcement are committing bilingual investigators to offices in nine areas of the state: El Centro, Fresno, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Salinas, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara. While the investigators will work mainly in their assigned areas, based on crop production and garment manufacturing cycles, teams will be moved from location to location depending on the need to address systemic or widespread violations. Attorneys from all three cooperating agencies will also be available to the program.
Teams of state and federal investigators will be looking for violations involving minimum wages and mandatory overtime premiums; child labor; licensing and registration; workers' compensation coverage; field sanitation, injury and illness prevention programs; migrant housing; and unemployment tax contributions.
An employee outreach component of TIP will include distribution of cards in several languages outlining worker rights under state and federal laws. A toll-free phone number for farm workers, 800/733-3899, offers information on both state and federal services. It is staffed by bilingual employees during periods more convenient than normal business hours to agricultural employees.
The program will endeavor to also provide employers with information on their responsibilities under the law. Investigators will distribute a "Basic Summary of Employment Requirements" in agriculture and garment manufacturing. TIP is set up as a two-year project, to be automatically renewed as is in 1994 unless one of the participant agencies cancels or all three agree to alter it.
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