News Dec 22, 2022 at 12:54 pm

Seattle's Office of Labor Standards Has Recovered $7.5 Million for Workers This Year

When bad bosses get greedy with their workers' wages, Seattle's Office of Labor Standards makes them pay. iStock/Getty Images Plus

Comments

1

Many years ago I was working as a contractor at The Westin (which used to be a very nice hotel). The company I was working for went bankrupt, and a new company hired us, but they were very sketchy and stopped paying us. Back in those days, you could file a complaint with Labor and Industries, and they would reimburse you (L&I also paid all my bills when I was injured on that job)

It's good to know that there's now a department in city government that addresses wage theft. If it weren't for Papa Vel-DuRay I wouldn't have known that L&I even existed.

3

@1: When it was the Washington Plaza Hotel with Trader Vics? It was glamours.

4

I second Mrs. Vel-DuRayā€™s sentiment concerning Seattle's Office of Labor Standards. I well recall when we voters demanded the Paid Sick and Safe Time law, and to raise Seattleā€™s minimum wage. Thereā€™s no point in having laws without law enforcement, and I am glad the city recovered the money stolen from workers.

That said, it seems implausible that wage theft could exceed ā€œall other forms of theft combinedā€ in Seattle. (The link connects to a national study from 2014, which contrasted wage theft only with ā€œrobbery,ā€ not ā€œall other forms of theft combined.ā€) For one example, package theft alone accounts for about $19.5 billion annually across the United States, and Seattle-Tacoma trails only San Francisco in having packages stolen. (https://www.safewise.com/blog/metro-areas-porch-theft/) For another, thefts of catalytic converters were still going strong well into 2032 in Seattle. (The Strangerā€™s mockery towards victims of these thefts did nothing to reduce their costs.)

6

@1 "Back in those days, you could file a complaint with Labor and Industries, and they would reimburse you"

Pretty sure you still can, although lost/stolen wages aren't replaced entirely (and never have been, as far as I know). I filed an L&I claim for $1,500 in the early '00s after an employer fled the state, and got about half of it.

7

Also, glad to see the Stranger acknowledge at least some of Seattleā€™s laws as just, and applauding their enforcement. Far too many times of late, the Stranger has played directly into the hands of right-wingers, by treating habitual criminals as the only persons worthy of sympathy. This undermines support for reforms of police and prisons.

Again, Iā€™m glad to see the Stranger supporting Seattleā€™s laws, especially laws which protect workers.

8

"...the largest source of theft in the city, so massive that it eclipses all other forms of theft combined: wage theft."

Yeah, right. This assertion only makes the big boys and girls at the top laugh. The big money is thieving and looting the New Plantation Economy enabled by the Reagan Restoration, maximizing economic injustice via obscene tax cuts and reckless deregulation. The big theft is that while wages stayed flat in real terms since the 1970s for most everyone, with housing, education and healthcare costs skyrocketing, and the bottom 10% actually lost ground, the top 10% doubled, the 1% quadrupled and the .01% are launching spaceships.

9

I thought the police and enforcing laws are why we want NTK. No enforcement for anything including wage theft. Itā€™s equity that caused the owner of the company not paying your wages so too bad.

10

Raindrop, I'm not quite so old that I would have been able to have been employed at The Washington Plaza, but I was around after the north tower rose, and the whole thing became the Westin, with its two restaurants and three bars (including the Trader Vic's and the disco named "Fitzgerald's on Fifth", along with a foufy "wine bar" on the upper level of The highly-acclaimed Palm Court Dining Room)

I was working at The Westin the last night of Trader Vic's. I, along with most of the other staff, and scores of retirees and hangers-on showed up once they announced that they were giving all the remaining booze away. Such a lovely goodbye...

CKathes dear, It's entirely possible that Westin made up the difference in our wages, since our presence there was pretty much essential for their banquet and convention business. All I know is that we were made whole.


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