This guide explains employment laws relevant to gleaning organizations to ensure that volunteers are classified correctly and minimize the risk of unintentional violations of labor laws.
Introduction
Gleaning organizations often rely on the help of volunteers to harvest agricultural crops for donation to a food bank or direct distribution to those in need. Ensuring that volunteers are in fact volunteers and not more accurately considered employees may help protect gleaning organizations from liability for unintentional potential violations of labor laws.
Acknowledgements
This factsheet is presented by the National Gleaning Project, a partnership of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School and the Association of Gleaning Organizations. We also thank Olivia Burton MFALP’21, and the organizations who shared their photographs: Senior Gleaners, Eden Gleaning Project, Salvation Farms, and Lincoln County Gleaners.
Suggested Citation
Legal Questions & Answers: Volunteers in Gleaning, Ass’n of Gleaning Orgs. (2022), https://nationalgleaningproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Gleaning_Volunteer_QA_2022.pdf.
