Ag Labor Forum Sessions & Speakers
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Properly handling employee discipline and terminations is essential for legal compliance, safety, and workforce management. Getting it wrong means opening your company up to liability and costly litigation. Join this panel of experts – from the office to the field – as they walk through hypotheticals plucked from the headlines. Explore how legal requirements translate into workable company policies and learn at how to realistically apply procedures in the field while balancing crew morale and productivity.
Rebecca House-Schultz, Fisher Phillips
Ryan Reed, Bonipak
Laura Penera, Braga Ranch
Hannah Tarrats, Datatech
Pascal Stewart, PickTrace
Mike Dodson, PAGO
Emie George, Ganaz
A través de la radio e incluso en los tianguis de todo el estado, abogados demandantes buscan captar a sus empleados como clientes y promover demandas que pueden costarle grandes sumas a su negocio. ¿Por qué resultan tan atractivos estos casos? ¿Qué mensajes reciben sus empleados de abogados especializados en PAGA, compensación de trabajadores y otras áreas laborales?
Participe en esta conversación con un abogado laboral y un consultor en materia de empleo para conocer cómo se originan estos casos y por qué representan un riesgo cada vez mayor para su empresa. Lo más importante: descubra qué medidas proactivas puede adoptar para reducir su exposición, fortalecer sus prácticas laborales y proteger su negocio.
Emilio Rodriguez, Littler
Raul Calvo, Employer Services Consulting
Think you know your wage and hour math? Put your skills to the test in this interactive session designed specifically for FLCs and agricultural employers. We’ll take a game-style approach to some of the most common and challenging wage and hour calculations facing the agricultural industry.
Participants will work through real-world, ag-specific scenarios involving issues such as piece-rate compensation, overtime, regular rates of pay, reporting time, travel time, and other complicating calculations. You’ll be challenged to crunch the numbers, spot potential errors, and determine whether the math and payroll are correct.
This is not your typical wage and hour lecture; come ready with your pencils sharpened, test your knowledge, compete with your peers, and find out if you can catch the mistake before it becomes a costly problem.
Erica Rosasco & Vivian Webber, Rosasco Law Group
Catherine Houlihan, Barsamian, Moody & Houlihan
Ruben Lugo, Impact Ag Labor
Gladys Wotring, J.G. Boswell Company
Manejar correctamente las medidas disciplinarias y los despidos es fundamental para el cumplimiento legal, la seguridad y la administración del personal. Hacerlo de manera incorrecta puede exponer a su empresa a responsabilidades legales y litigios potencialmente costosos.
Acompáñenos a analizar la cadena de responsabilidades: un abogado laboral explicará los requisitos legales; el área de Recursos Humanos mostrará cómo traducir ese marco legal en políticas viables para la empresa; y veremos cómo aplicar estos procedimientos de manera realista en el campo, manteniendo un equilibrio entre la moral de las cuadrillas y la productividad.
Mucha información puede perderse en el “teléfono descompuesto” entre el área legal, Recursos Humanos y el personal de campo. Descubra cómo establecer una comunicación sólida entre estas áreas para lograr un cumplimiento verdaderamente eficaz en la práctica.
Anais Mora, Patane Gumberg Avilla LLP
Laura Penera, Al Pak Labor, Inc.
Cosme Sanchez, California Agricultural Business Solutions, Inc.
Are your financials revealing warning signs—or hiding them? This practical, FLC-focused session will help you identify red flags in your books, recognize common financial and bookkeeping mistakes, and better understand what your numbers are telling you about your business. Learn what to look for when hiring a bookkeeper, how to evaluate their work, and what reasonable fees look like.
Most importantly, learn to take control of your financial narrative. You don’t have to be an accountant to understand your numbers—you just need to know the right questions to ask and how to be part of the conversation.
Janie Zuniga, Ag Bookkeeping
Andres Torres,
Ruben Lugo, Impact Ag Labor
Ronnie Alderete, Premier Packing
Mariana Barrera, Empire FLC
Workers’ comp costs are climbing, while workers are seeing huge payouts advertised on social media and the radio. Do you know how to prevent fraud? What red flags to look for? And how to build cases that hold up?
Join us to explore best practices for managing claims and investigations, and how to collaborate effectively with claims teams and Special Investigation Units. Learn to separate legitimate claims from abuse and fraud, navigate surveillance, document the facts that matter, and preserve evidence. Understand the critical role supervisors play in reducing risk and controlling claim costs and walk away with strategies you can apply to protect your workforce and company.
Tim Clooney, The Zenith
For even the most proactive and compliant companies, it's a question of when, not if, they'll be hit by PAGA, a class action, or another lawsuit. So what can you do to protect the business you've built? Strategic compartmentalization to isolate risks can dramatically reduce your exposure and decrease potential settlements. Join us to learn how to structure your business to silo assets and separate liability, without creating an unmanageable mess. Whether you're established and looking to restructure, or a growing business that wants to build it right the first time, this session breaks down the framework for insulating liability — and how that can even be a selling point for your Grower clients.
Gerardo Hernandez, Littler
Jose Guerrero, Guerrero Mears LLP
Cuando los trabajadores no se sienten cómodos expresando sus inquietudes, o cuando los supervisores guardan silencio para evitar pareceres ineficaces o que su equipo sea etiquetado como "problemático", los problemas no desaparecen por sí solos. Por el contrario, pueden resurgir en 936 468forma de conflictos de recursos humanos, denuncias ante organismos reguladores o litigios costosos.
Descubra cómo cambiar la mentalidad: deje de ver las quejas como amenazas y empiece a reconocerlas como un sistema de alerta temprana que ayuda a proteger tanto a los empleados como a la empresa. Analice las barreras que impiden a los empleados alzar la voz y cómo la respuesta de un supervisor puede fomentar o inhibir la comunicación futura.
Obtenga estrategias prácticas para crear canales de comunicación accesibles y basados en la confianza, fomentar la retroalimentación de los empleados, abordar las inquietudes a tiempo y construir una cultura en la que expresar opiniones forme parte de la solución de problemas, y no de su creación.
Lourdes Gonzalez, Consulting MLG LLC
Raul Calvo, Employer Services Consulting
¿Sus estados financieros están mostrando señales de alerta o están ocultando posibles problemas? Esta sesión práctica, diseñada para contratistas de mano de obra agrícola (FLC), le ayudará a identificar señales de alerta en sus registros contables, reconocer errores financieros y contables comunes en la industria y entender mejor lo que sus números realmente dicen sobre su negocio. También aprenderá qué buscar al contratar a un contador o encargado de llevar sus libros, cómo evaluar su trabajo y cómo determinar si los honorarios que le cobran son razonables.
Sobre todo, aprenderá a tomar el control de las finanzas de su negocio. No necesita ser contador para entender sus números. Necesita saber qué buscar, qué preguntas hacer y cómo participar activamente en las conversaciones financieras de su empresa.
Janie Zuniga, Ag Bookkeeping
Andres Torres,
When workers don't feel comfortable raising concerns, or when supervisors keep quiet because they don't want to appear ineffective or have their crew labeled “problematic”, issues don't just disappear. They may instead resurface as HR problems, regulatory complaints, or costly litigation.
Explore how to shift the mindset from viewing complaints as threats, to recognizing them as an early-warning system to help protect both employees and the company. Examine barriers that keep employees from speaking up, how a supervisor's response can either encourage or shut down future communication.
Leave with practical strategies to create trusted and accessible communication channels, encourage employee feedback, address concerns early, and build a culture where speaking up is part of solving problems— not creating them.
Lourdes Gonzalez, Consulting MLG LLC
Raul Calvo, Employer Services Consulting
Lisa Prince, The Prince Firm
Join us on the deck to wind down the day in the fresh air. Grab a drink, a bite, connect with colleagues from across the state and put a face to the team behind the software helping keep your operations compliant. All Ag Labor Forum attendees welcome.
Presentado en inglés con interpretación simultánea al español
Cal/OSHA's Ag Enforcement Task Force has been ramping up enforcement and inspections with plans to continue expanding. Join us for an update on agency priorities; both the public statements and the story reports are telling. Hear firsthand from those who have been through inspections recently, with panelists sharing their experiences managing inspections in the field, including practical lessons on documentation, worker interviews, how to work constructively with inspectors and how to stand your ground without painting a target on your back.
This session will give you a real-world up-to-date practical understanding of the current enforcement landscape and practical guidance for managing inspections from those who have navigated the process with the new Task Force.
Bill Krycia, Cal/OSHA [ret]
Goretti Calvo, AgSocio
Sindia Martinez, Sunrise Farm Labor
Presentado en inglés con interpretación simultánea al español
Close out the Forum with a practical look at the most consequential new laws, regulations, and litigation trends to prepare for in 2027. Get ahead of plaintiff attorneys’ Trojan claims as they look for new entry points and creative ways to stack additional claims once they're in the door.
Through a conversational legal-and-HR perspective, we'll explore trends we’re seeing and offer practical guidance for implementing policies to effectively to reduce exposure. The best defense is a well-informed one — leave with a clear sense of where the liabilities are and what to do to protect your business.
Seth Mehrten, Littler
Lennet Giron, Paragon Personnel
Ag Labor Forum Speakers
