Or you could do what Canada does and hire Temporary Fireign Workers to replace US citizens.

Oh wait ... That's what H1-B and L-1 L-2 jobs are

It's not just fucking wrong to steal from people, it's wrong to steal from people. However, with shining examples like Wall Street, such beautifully tailored suits they wear, and did you hear about the wonderful island where they vacationed? So really, who's to say what's right and wrong.

Great point and one that doesn't get enough attention. A million seems like small money which is great to hear. Ideally it would be financed by penalties on the people they catch cheating.

Vigorous enforcement is a good part of the solution, but you also need a private right of action. Workers need the right go to court on their own, if they get ripped off, as well. Cheating is so widespread, you couldn't possibly catch all the cheaters by investigation.

Yes, let's all listen to the vice chair of the Public Safety Committee (Police issues) on enforcement of standards and accountability. He's an expert.

http://www.seattle.gov/council/com_assig…
Chair: Bruce A. Harrell
Vice-Chair: Nick Licata
Member: Sally Bagshaw
Alternate: Tim Burgess

As chair, Councilmember Harrell will consider policies relating to law enforcement, crime prevention and criminal justice, civil rights, emergency preparedness and medical services, City information technology planning and implementation, and cable telecommunication services in Seattle.

A private right of action, with the damages set at the greater of annual salary at full time or treble the loss.

It's worth noting that the group protesting in this picture, Working Washington, a sponsor of 15Now, pays its organizers a starting salary of...(drum roll) LESS THAN $15/HOUR!
Source: http://mynorthwest.com/76/2498607/Group-…

So they want a little Pho' shop owned by a Vietnamese grandmother who herself works six days a week and hardly has enough to support herself to pay 15/hour, but they pay their own people "poverty wages". Really?

Holy Shit, the Hambergler was there!

@8 oh you're so clever you found what appears to be a bit of hypocrisy, that incidentally really has nothing to do with the question at hand. Should there be an Office of labor standards enforcement?

Tell me Collectivism_sucks how is wage theft addressed in your Pollyannaland?

@8

The point of having a minimum wage is that it's the minimum everyone pays. The minimum wage is not one employer deciding to pay above the minimum wage. It's not hypocritical to work within the rules of the present system while advocating for fairer rules that apply to everyone.

Hypocritical would be, say, Dave Meinert or Tom Douglas or Andrew Friedman bloviating, "I support $15 per hour, as long as we have all these cutouts that make it so other businesses pay $15, but not me."

@11
LMAO ROTFL!
That makes NOTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING ANY SENSE. I mean, what if an abolitionist owned slaves in the 1850s? Could he just say "well, it's legal now, so I'll own them even though I don't want to own them" ?

These people are hypocrites and the only way you can't see that is if you don't live in the state of Washington but rather in the state of denial.

And Tom Douglas was talking about what counts as income. If the IRS includes tips as income, as does the state for child support and other purposes. Why should he be treated any differently? And he would raise the non-tipped employees. If they are making a living income, (whatever the hell that means) it doesn't matter how they're getting the money, as long as it gets to them as a part of their job.

@8 wrong organization

@10
Actually, I agree with what the office of labor is doing. Wage theft is a crime. My only issue is this: instead of a just finding them, they should throw someone in jail. When people start going to jail for not paying their workers what they promise to pay them, this will happen a WHOLE lot less.

Funny thing is, Houston just passed a sweeping wage theft reform ordinance. And the effort was lead by, get this, the HOUSTON GOP!
http://www.texasgopvote.com/issues/grow-…

Every now and then those right-wing numbskulls manage to do something right.

@14 Then why the Gish Galloping? The question wasn't about what the MW should be it was about how to enforce what it is.

Even in your answer to me you couldn't resist throwing up dust. Great Houston just passed a wage theft reform ordinance. All that means is now the same question applies to Houston. Ok great now how are you going to enforce it?

@15
Good points. I would say some aspects of the Department of Labor of various state should be merged with their local justice departments. Let state police investigate and enforce these things instead of the usual paper-pushers. That would put the fear of God into wage thefts.
I may be for smaller government, but even I see that government should do more to stop theft and fraud. On that I and most of the Stranger posters agree.

@16 Took a bit to pull you around to saying something without all the dust, nonetheless thank you for your input on this topic.

Easiest enforcement/penalty ever, no fines or anything... just wheatpaste a 24x36" poster on the front door of each offending business that with bold, Impact 4" font reads:

"This Business Exploits Your Neighbors and Fellow Citizens for Cheap Labor in Order to Maximize Profits"

This would become the best deterrent ever. Most restaurants see fines and administrative threats as just a cost of doing business. Publicly shaming their business and tapping the dependable Seattle liberal guilt of their customers? Now that will sting.

@12

Paying the minimum wage is not a crime against humanity. Minimum wage activists are not slavery abolitionists. And you are nobody to be accusing others of not making sense.

The fact that it's income doesn't mean the employer gets to pretend they pay it. Child support or lottery winnings or gifts are income, but that doesn't entitle your boss to dock your pay because you got income from elsewhere.

Tips do not come from your employer and the big lie they're pushing is that they are a party the transaction between the customer and the tipped employee.

What if the employer got a windfall from elsewhere? Maybe capital gains, or someone gives them a cash gift? Should the employees decide to help themselves to a cut of that? Absurd; it has nothing to do with them. What if it happens at the place of work?

Can the employee say, "Well, the owner wouldn't even have the opportunity to make all this money if it wasn't for us employees. Since he'd have never gotten that extra bump without us working here, we should just reach in the cash register and take some for ourselves." Also know as "theft". When it's not yours, and you take it, it's theft.

When employers take tips, which are not theirs, it's theft.

Geez, what a bunch of fear mongering. Minimum-wage mandates and false paying/reporting incomes is two different things. It is fear mongering to put the two together as if paying a dishwasher a low wage (that s/he agreed to) is the same thing as ripping them off.

There are already laws written to address crimes in not paying a worker what you promised. Why do we need another government agency to do it?

As a small business owner, I have to report earnings and hours ever quarter. I report it to the ESD (Employment Security Department) and to L&I (Labor and Industries). In that, they can easily see what I pay my workers per hour. Now if I were to cheat my workers of their pay, I would also be reporting false information to two agencies. This is a crime on two fronts and is already enforceable.

Fear mongering seems to be 15now's default setting.

@19

"Tips do not come from your employer and the big lie they're pushing is that they are a party the transaction between the customer and the tipped employee."

In that frame, everything to do with a business is paid for by the customer. The pizza, the delivery service, the tip; All would not exist without the customer. Tips are just the most transparent customer-to-worker payment.

However, without a business organizing all the aspects of running a business, including receiving payment from a customer for a service/product, the tip would not be there. Nothing would be there.

@21

Yes, all the business's income comes from the customer. That is a transaction between the customer and the business. The money belongs to the business. The business then has every right to distribute its own money to pay its obligations as it sees fit.

There is a separate transaction between the customer and the tipped worker. If you really want evidence that the tips are not the property of the business is that bosses who steal tips are sent to jail. By the courts. The courts? You know, the ones who judge what is and isn't the law?

The customer pays their bill. The customer may also tip the worker. The customer might even give money to another customer. Or a guy panhandling out in front. Should a business take a cut from the panhandler because they attracted the customer to that piece of sidewalk?

The argument "you wouldn't have tips if it wasn't for me" is utterly fallacious. If it weren't, bosses would use it to get themselves out of jail for stealing tips. And it's a two way street, as I already said: the boss wouldn't have any income if it weren't for the employees. That doesn't entitle the employees to anything beyond what was promised them by law and by agreement with the employer.

Jesus, next they'll be saying if you met your spouse on the job you owe them your first born child. "Because you wouldn't have met them without this business!"

They're employees, not serfs.

@14: HAH! You just advocated for the government to use the threat of force to make people obey rules set up by society for the good of all! Whatever happened to "Voluntarism"?

@22

"you wouldn't have tips if it wasn't for me"

Oh god, shutup. You have really no clue how a business is run, do you?

Some workers get paid in tips. Businesses whom have workers that get paid in tips, structure the business around the fact that the worker gets paid in tips. In other words, they make decisions in pricing food, in wage calculations, and in other aspects around the fact that some staff get tips. This is simple math.

It has NOTHING to do with whom owns the tips. Of course the employees do! It has everything to do with a business operating with expectations of how things actually work.

Also, It is ridiculous to suggest that "tipping" should go away. That "tipping is [inherently] sexist" and a bad way to pay someone. (Actual quote from Sawant). This is society norm that exists everywhere. It just shows how out of touch socialists are with peoples lives in general.

@24: Nick, it seems you're saying that some businesses don't pay some of their employees, since those employees get paid by customers in the form of tips. Yes?