May ’17 Fair Work News

/in /by

Greetings and welcome to the May edition of the Fair Work News, our quarterly e-newsletter.

Nicole Vallestero Keenan

When I was the victim of wage theft years ago, I made the decision to ignore it. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Asking for your rights shouldn’t be so hard, and it shouldn’t incite fear over losing your job. But it was hard and it did make me scared. Every worker should have the power to say to her boss, “Hey, my paycheck’s a little short,” or, “I need to be out sick today,” without fear of retaliation. I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I needed was a Fair Work Center.

Two years ago, we set out to build an organization to ensure every worker in our region knew their rights and had the tools and resources to enact them. Today we are continuing to grow as an organization and expand our reach. We will soon have 10 staff. In our new contract with the Seattle Office of Labor Standards, we have 12 community partners committed to training workers 22,000 workers together. And we have a thriving legal clinic that has already supported hundreds of workers to achieve their rights on the job. In this newsletter, we provide updates on two cases that the legal clinic recently closed and two more that we are currently working on.

But there is so much more to do. Earlier this week, we marched with thousands of people for worker and immigrant rights on May Day – International Workers Day. It’s a day for solidarity among workers across the country, but it also highlights the barriers to sustainable, fair work for immigrants in our country. If your immigration status is tenuous, retaliation on the job could result in tearing your family and your life apart.

Fair Work Center is digging hard into the work of making sure our labor laws are implemented well and benefit everyone, regardless of national origin, primary language, physical ability, gender or race. We are working to make sure that Washington State’s new minimum wage and paid sick leave laws protect workers against retaliation and provide real remedies for workers when they are wronged. We are also launching a series of roundtable discussions to help government agencies identify and enforce labor laws while protecting the identity of workers – thereby adding another layer of protection from retaliation.

Finally, I am excited to announce that we are launching a new leadership program for workers we engage with through our outreach, education and legal services. The Worker Power Training program will deepen workers’ understanding of labor and employment law, build workers’ skills for supporting and advocating for each other, and connect workers to others who are equally passionate about these issues. The story of Amina and Ahmed in this newsletter is a perfect example of how workers gain power by standing together.

Thank you for your continued support of Fair Work Center.

In Solidarity,

 

 

Nicole Vallestero Keenan
Executive Director

FAIR WORK NEWS CONTENTS:

Pictures from the May Day Rally & March 2017

/in /by

FAIR WORK NEWS CONTENTS:

 

Amina, Ahmed and the power of standing together

/in /by

Fair Work Center is excited to announce that we are launching a new leadership development program for workers we engage with through our outreach, education and legal services. The Worker Power Training program will deepen workers’ understanding of labor and employment law, build workers’ skills for supporting and advocating for each other, and connect workers to others who are equally passionate about these issues.

Fully informed workers standing together creates power for workers, especially in low-wage industries where employers often isolate and intimidate workers into remaining silent and compliant.

Take the recent example of Amina and the role our own Ahmed Abdi played as peer advocate. Amina, a Somali refugee and mother, has worked for years in commercial cleaning for one of the major subcontractors at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

About a year ago, Amina got a new shift supervisor, and it wasn’t going well. She was often reduced to tears by her interactions with him. He routinely yelled at her in front of other staff and in one-on-one meetings. She put up with his verbal abuse for months. She even tried to get transferred to another shift supervisor’s team but management said no. When Amina finally stood up for herself and told her supervisor he couldn’t keep treating her this way, she was told to turn in her ID badge and go home early. She thought she lost her job.

A few days later she was called in for a meeting with her shift supervisor and the general manager. She thought for sure they were going to fire her. She felt that was unfair but she didn’t know what to do about it.

Amina called her friend, Faduma, who had experienced her own problems at work but got support from Fair Work Center. Faduma told Amina to call Ahmed Abdi, a leader in the East African community and our outreach manager.

Amina asked Ahmed whether she should go to the meeting. It was 9:00pm and her meeting was the next morning. She was scared of what might happen and thought it might be best to not go at all. Ahmed told Amina to go and he offered to accompany her as peer support and translator.

In the meeting, Ahmed steered the conversation away from the personal tensions between Amina and her shift supervisor to a more productive discussion on the quality of Amina’s work history, which was exemplary. Prior to her new supervisor, there were no formal complaints about her work over the years. Even her supervisor’s issues were based on her personality, never her ability to do the work. Ahmed helped cool simmering tensions and gave Amina the courage to tell her side of the story.

At the end of the meeting, Ahmed and Amina were told to wait outside in the lobby while her supervisor and the general manager spoke in private. Five minutes later the general manager emerged, handed Amina her badge back and told her she would be transferred to another shift supervisor.

On her own, Amina was afraid. She felt powerless. But with Ahmed standing with her, she had the courage to fight for her job. Now Amina knows she is not alone, knows she has rights on the job, and knows how to support other her co-workers or friends when they need it.

We believe the Worker Power Trainings will strengthen worker leadership in our region. This leadership, in turn, will support other workers in standing up for their rights, as well as inform our work at Fair Work Center over the coming years. We are excited by this new opportunity and we hope you are too. If so, please consider supporting Fair Work Center with a donation to help us get this program fully resourced and off the ground.

Sing Into Spring 2017 Recap

/in /by

We had so much fun at Sing Into Spring, our karaoke fundraiser on March 23 at The Royal Room. More than 175 people packed the room and enjoyed good food, company and more than a few amazing karaoke performances! If you missed the fun, it is not too late to donate and support Fair Work Center. Check out some of our favorite photos from the night below.

 

FAIR WORK NEWS CONTENTS:

May Case Briefs

/in /by

Here is an update on two cases we reported in our last newsletter as well as a sampling of two new cases. All worker names are changed to protect their privacy.

Update on Kim’s case: Previously, we shared that Kim was paid just $1,000 per month as an assistant to a hairdresser, despite working 45 hours each week (less than $5.50 per hour). Her employer thought that she could take advantage of Kim’s immigration status as well as her desire to break into the personal care industry. The Fair Work Legal Clinic represented Kim and filed charges on her behalf with Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries (L&I).

Though L&I initially assessed $2,000 in back pay, which was as much as Kim expected, Danielle Kim, a third-year law student at Seattle University, didn’t stop there. She looked closely at the salon’s appointment log, parsing each appointment and determining how many hours Kim worked. Danielle proved that Kim was owed another $2,000 for her overtime and work off the clock. L&I agreed, ordering the employer to pay the full $4,000. Kim is thrilled with the result, but we at Fair Work Center believe L&I should go further in future cases.

Currently, L&I does not require that employers include interest when paying back wages stolen from their workers’ paychecks. No matter how long ago the wage theft occurred or how long the investigation takes, L&I will allow the employer to satisfy its obligation paying only the wages that were due originally. Essentially, this means that employers can take a no-interest loan from their employees’ paychecks. Meanwhile, low-wage workers – who are disproportionately women, people of color, immigrants and refugees – suffer the consequences. Fair Work Center will continue to advocate on behalf of all workers to recover interest in all wage theft cases.

Update on José’s case: In our last newsletter, we also told you about José, who worked as a painter for a large construction firm that misclassified him as an independent contractor. He came to Fair Work Center with some $2,000 in court fees after his initial lawyer abandoned his case.

After we initially took the case, the employer approached us with a settlement offer of $750. But after four months of careful case development and hard negotiation on José’s behalf by the Legal Clinic – including outstanding work by Troy Thornton another third-year law student at Seattle University – José just accepted a settlement of $10,000.

The Fair Work Legal Clinic took Jose’s case when no other attorney in Seattle would. Not because those lawyers didn’t care about José or believe in his case, but because our justice system is not set up to serve the needs of low-wage workers. For complex cases like José’s, with relatively modest amounts of money at stake, it is incredibly difficult for low-wage workers to get justice on the job.

Here are a few more newer cases currently underway.

Gova worked as a seasonal employee at a large department store in downtown Seattle. During her two months there, she suffered routine harassment from her manager, Susy. Susy said things like: “You don’t belong here,” and “I don’t understand your English,” and “Why don’t you go back?” Gova is from Mongolia.

But Gova couldn’t afford to lose her job. While she was regularly harassed by her manager, she was also forced to work through many of her rest and meal breaks to ensure the retail floor was sufficiently staffed during the busiest time of the year. Not that Gova complained, she was a hard worker, but Human Resources noticed she wasn’t clocking out for meal breaks and insisted she do so.

One evening, about halfway into her 8-hour shift, Gova asked for her meal break. Susy denied her break and told Gova to ask again in an hour, which she did. She was denied again. Recalling her conversations with Human Resources, Gova said that she had to take her break. The situation escalated when to the point where Gova was told to go home early from her shift. A few days later Gova learned she was fired. Gova requested an investigation and access to her employee file. Both requests were denied.

The Legal Clinic has helped Gova gain access to her file and a written statement of the reasons for her discharge. We are assisting Gova to file wage and hour complaints with the Seattle Office of Labor Standards to get Gova paid for her breaks, and we are working with Gova to explore her options for other actions against her employer.

Amar is both a long- and short-haul truck driver. He worked for a single dispatching company and was told that, as an “independent contractor,” he would be paid for each successful delivery in an amount decided at the time of dispatch. Needless to say, the dispatcher never told him the amount he would earn at the time of dispatch.

For the first six months, though, they paid Amar somewhere between $750 and $3,000 depending the length of the trip. In March, he was dispatched to a make a delivery in Ohio and headed out on this 10-day round-trip journey. Upon his return, the company told him that they could not pay him right then but would pay later. After several more unpaid jobs, he demanded payment and said that he intended to leave the company. The owner threatened his commercial drivers license – a not-so-veiled threat based on his perceived immigration status.

The Legal Clinic is working to get Amar paid the correct amount for every trip her made.

Finally, in a new and still developing case: Lucas is a cook at a local restaurant chain where is has not been paid overtime or provided rest or meal breaks. Other workers at the restaurant are in the same situation, though they are too frightened to come forward. The Legal Clinic has accepted his case and is hopeful to remedy Lucas’s situation as well as encourage his co-workers to come forward.

 

FAIR WORK NEWS CONTENTS: