Wagner-Peyser Act

As mentioned before, IDOL maintains several agreements and partnerships with other WIOA Core programs and partners throughout the state, each which have a significant impact on MSFWs across the state.    For example, The Community Council of Idaho is represented on the One-Stop Committee of the state Workforce Development Council, Idaho's WIOA State Board. The state’s monitor advocate and the Community Council have also entered into an agreement outlining the services that the SWA and NFJP grantee will both provide their efforts to reach out and increase services to MSFWs across the state.

In addition, the Idaho Department of Labor has agreements with several universities’ High School Equivalency Program (HEP) and College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) programs across the state to work in conjunction with both to offer the most effective and best possible services to MSFWs participating in those programs. Another strong collaborative effort the agency has maintained over the years is with U.S. DOL’s Wage and Hour Division regional office. A Memorandum of Understanding between the two entities is designed to maximize and improve the enforcement of laws administered by both agencies through greater coordination.  This MOU has been helpful to both agencies in their efforts to seek remedy for MSFWs impacted by those who sought to take advantage of them.

Also, the statewide training conferences, coordinated in partnership with the state monitor advocate, the College of Idaho, the Community Council of Idaho, the state’s HEP/CAMP programs, have included AJC and NFJP staff, as well as other partner staff. And will continue to do so in the future. As in previous years, attendees also included state education agency and local school district representatives, along with Boise State University’s HEP and CAMP programs. Training highlights include the state’s complaint system, and the challenges and obligations faced by Idaho’s agricultural employers relating to immigration. Plans for future trainings are already underway. A consortium comprised of the State Monitor Advocate, NFJP grantee staff and representatives from colleges and universities across the state meet periodically to expand informational offerings to not only MSFW service providers, but the public as a whole to provide them awareness of MSFWs across the state. However, because of the COVID pandemic, this event did not take place in the spring of 2021. It is hoped that the event may resume once the impact of the Corona virus has subsided.

At a minimum, the following collaborative activities will occur during the upcoming agricultural seasons:

• Review/renewal of cooperative agreements for coordination of services between the Idaho Department of Labor and the Community Council of Idaho
• Ongoing, mutual participation in staff training and ongoing communications to improve MSFW access to community services, particularly workforce services through the One Stop system
• Collaboration on development and sharing outreach materials among all entities
• Coordination of community information and staffing efforts at the local level to enhance outreach
• Sharing data for reporting and data analyses to improve partnership service delivery
• Assessment of opportunities and enhancement of processes to streamline co-enrollment

In order to leverage resources, staff will coordinate, where possible, outreach activities with partner organizations in their area, targeting large events where a greater number of farmworkers may be contacted. The State Monitor Advocate and outreach workers will continue to make use of appropriate media, especially public service announcements using the multitude of radio stations throughout the state with Spanish programming.

The existing core and One-Stop partners form the state level WIOA Advisory Group, which meets regularly to discuss the continued improvement of the state’s robust one-stop service delivery design. This collaboration is also engaged at the service delivery area level to ensure that their specific program services are integrated into the local one-stop delivery system. As part of the continuous improvement and design of the One-Stop service delivery, new partners are actively recruited.

Supplementing the cooperative agreements noted earlier, the required One-Stop Memorandum of Understanding addresses the service delivery integration and collaboration of the partners in providing services to MSFWs. Each memorandum of understanding will be reviewed within the required three-year timeline to ensure that the collaborations are still productive and make adjustments as necessary to ensure service delivery alignment.