GAPC Certification Tips
Our weekly email containing tips, advice and reminders that will help you achieve GAPC Certification in 2018. 
This week: Wage Statements and Certification Scoring
1. Wage Statements: What is required?
All workers who are paid by the grower and are not considered to be co-owner/co-operators with the grower are required to have a wage statement.  This includes immediate family labor that is being paid that is not a co-owner/co-operator.

To be considered a wage statement the following must be on the document that is provided to each worker when paid: 
  • Employer’s name, address, and identification number
  • Worker’s name, address, and social security number
  • Basis on which wages are paid
  • Number of piecework units earned, if paid on a piecework basis
  • Number of hours worked
  • Total pay period earnings
  • Specific sums withheld and the purpose of each sum withheld
  • Net pay 
Example US DOL Template for Wage Statement: 
2. Certification Scoring: What is the required score on the Certification Audit?
GAPC Certification Standards are defined as Critical or Additional.
Critical Standards are aligned to current legal requirements or otherwise deemed         necessary for the quality of the crop, or protection of the environment or workers.
Additional Standards are aligned to best practices in the industry.
Each Standard is assigned a point value. The point value is based on the risk to the supply chain that non-compliance could introduce.  
  • Critical Standards are weighted the highest as non-compliance would introduce a high risk to the supply chain.  (10 points)
  • Additional Standards carry a lower point value dependent on whether non-compliance with the standard is deemed a high (5 points), medium (2 points) or a low risk (1 point) to the supply chain.
Growers must be in compliance with 100% of the Critical Certification Standards and at least 75% of the Additional Standards to pass the Certification Audit. Growers will be given a chance to remediate if non-compliance is found as long as the Standard has a remediation option in the GAPC Standards and Remediation Details document
Follow-up from last week's email...
Several growers called GAPC with questions pertaining to the Worker Interviews topic in last week's email.  The most common question was:
"What questions are my workers going to be asked?"
Workers will be asked questions that help verify grower answers and ensure compliant working conditions.  Questions such as "Are you provided a wage statement?" are used to verify the growers answer and documentation to the grower question, "Do you provide wage statements to your workers?" Questions such as "Do you have access to safe and free drinking water at your work?" are used to ensure safe and compliant working conditions are being provided.  Workers are also asked about their work duties and corresponding training to ensure they are properly trained on required safety topics.
In future emails...  
  • Achieving Certification: It is more than just the Audit...
  • Updated 2018 578's 
  • Housing and Transportation

We will also be answering these questions and posting them online for easy access at: 

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