Opinion No. Oag 26-87, (1982)

LOWELL B. JACKSON, Secretary Department of Industry, Labor andHuman Relations

You ask whether a "sharecropping agreement" between an employer and a migrant worker violates the Wisconsin Migrant Law, secs.103.90-103.97, Stats. You indicate that some employers have offered sharecropping agreements to migrant workers under which the workers are paid in crops harvested rather than in cash.

It is assumed that the grower furnishes the land and supplies and keeps general supervision over the land where the crop is being grown. Such a worker is called a "cropper." "A cropper is as much a servant as if…