Cherry growers - Dept. of Labor rules prevent Washington state cherry growers from housing migrant workers in tent camps - Brief Article

Reason, Jan, 2000

Cherry growers in Washington state bring in thousands of migrant workers each year to pick their crops. The jobs last just a few weeks, and there's always a question of where to house the workers. The growers thought they had a solution: tent camps. The camps would give the workers a place to sleep with hot showers, toilets, and clean drinking water.

But then the Labor Department stepped in. It said the camps didn't meet federal guidelines, which mandate tents with 7-foot-high walls and solid floors. The feds also said the camps had to have refrigerators and stoves. The growers said that was too expensive. So they put up no camps. The result: Thousands of workers wound up sleeping in their cars or in sleeping bags in the forest.