Case Briefs

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Below are a few cases that have come in to the Fair Work Legal Clinic in the past couple of months. Names and other identifying information have been changed to protect the privacy of these workers.

Ivan and his family were new to the United States, having moved here from Argentina to pursue new opportunities in the food service industry. Back in Buenos Aires, he and his wife were accomplished gluten-free bakers and small business owners, and they were hoping to replicate that success here in the Pacific Northwest. To help make ends meet, Ivan went to work at a local South American restaurant. Despite consistently working 12-hour days, he never once received overtime pay. Eventually, he left to work in a different restaurant, without ever being paid for the overtime he was owed. After coming to Fair Work Center, Ivan worked with one of our law students in the legal clinic, who helped draft a demand letter for Ivan to send to his former employer. We then negotiated a settlement with the employer covering $5,000 in unpaid overtime to Ivan.

Jeffery is a maintenance worker who disclosed his HIV-positive status on a health insurance form he completed for his employer. His employer [who had no right to see Jeffrey’s confidential medical information] then ordered the Jeffery to take a leave of absence, saying he couldn’t come back to work until Jeffery provided a doctor’s statement releasing him to work and detailing his personal medical information. The anti-discrimination employment law protects people with HIV and other medical conditions from differential, negative treatment at work, so we sent the employer a letter alerting them to the legal implications of their current course. Thankfully, and because Jeffery wanted to continue working there, the employer withdrew its demand and paid Jeffery back wages for the time he was forced to stay home from work.

Lastly, we also recently settled a case in which we represented Sandra and Nate, two former employees of a local general contracting company. The general contractor had been stringing them along for months, promising to pay as soon as he could, while the workers continued to work full-time without getting a paycheck. All the while, the contractor was sending his kids to private school and taking a family vacation to Mexico. After a few months, the contractor abandoned the construction projects and laid off the entire staff. Sandra and Nate were referred to the legal clinic by the King County Bar Association, and once we took on their case we filed suit, which led to negotiating a settlement with the general contractor for $15,000 in compensation.

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Summer Staff Additions

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We’ve been fortunate to grow our staff over the past few months to help meet the increased outreach, education and legal services we are providing. Please join us in welcoming Katie, Andra and Alex. Learn more about each below.

Katie Cameron
Staff Attorney
Katie Cameron is a graduate of Stanford University and Berkeley Law. Prior to joining the Fair Work Center Legal Clinic, she worked in private practice in Seattle, representing employees in state and federal litigation. Her experience also includes work in public policy, impact litigation and immigration law. At Fair Work Center, Katie focuses on direct representation, litigation, and policy advocacy designed to enforce workers’ rights and shift power in the workplace for workers. Katie will also provide legal and technical support to our community clinic program and collaborative partners.

 

Andra Kranzler
Intake and Outreach Staff Attorney
Andra Kranzler is a graduate of Eastern Washington University and Seattle University School of Law. After law school, Andra received the school’s Justice in Action fellowship, where she spent two years at Columbia Legal Services providing critical legal support and advocacy that was instrumental in producing Seattle’s groundbreaking priority hire ordinance. Most recently, Andra was a Legislative Aide for Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold. Andra will join the legal clinic in August and will be responsible for coordinating our community clinic program, handling intake services, and joining our outreach and education team at events to provide legal services in the community. She will also represent workers directly

Alex Gallo-Brown
Retail Workforce Development Coordinator

Alex Gallo-Brown, Retail Workforce Development Coordinator. Alex is responsible for developing and guiding our Retail Workforce Development program. He brings experience as a community college instructor, labor organizer, published writer and poet, retail worker, and caregiver, among other vocations. Alex holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University in Atlanta and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He is passionate about empowering workers, promoting racial justice, preparing pasta puttanesca, and reading and writing poetry.

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Fair Work Legal Clinic First Birthday and Fundraiser

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What a night! Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate the 1st Birthday of the Fair Work Legal Clinic on September 27.

The Fair Work Legal Clinic has been a tremendous addition to Fair Work Center. Since opening the legal clinic one year ago, we have provided intake and legal information, advice or representation to more than 450 workers looking for a solution to workplace violations, most commonly some form of wage theft. The total monetary impact of our interventions in these cases is more than $400,000, while also helping numerous workers get their jobs back after wrongful termination.

We’d like to especially thank our sponsors one last time for making the event a success: Emery Reddy, Breskin Johnson & Townsend PLLC, Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC, Frank Freed Subit & Thomas LLP, University of Washington School of Law, Seattle University School of Law. And thanks to our boosters: AKW Law, P.C. and Kittleson Cairns PLLC – Injury & Employment Lawyers – Tacoma.

In case you missed the event, you can still contribute at fairworkcenter.org/donate.

Check out the pics below!

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The Beecher’s Case

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Beecher’s Handmade Cheese is a prominent, local, artisan cheesemaker. Founded in Seattle in 2003, Beecher’s now anchors popular in-house cheesemaking shops in both Seattle and the Flatiron District of New York City.

Back in September of 2015, nine hoop-breakers – a job requiring extreme physical labor that comes near the end of the cheese-making process – came to Fair Work Center alleging that they were routinely denied breaks, paid sick leave time and overtime. When they did take leave, they said they had been retaliated against by their manager.

At the time, Fair Work Center did not yet have a legal clinic, just three staff and a part-time legal director. We formally requested the Seattle Office of Labor Standards (OLS) file a Director’s Charge on behalf of the cheese-making employees at Beecher’s. After months of Fair Work Center advocating alongside and on behalf of those workers, OLS worked to convene a settlement conference so that we could talk directly with Beecher’s and persuade them to change their practices.

In what would become our first major co-enforcement action with OLS, we saw company-wide changes at Beecher’s as a result of the charges filed and resulting settlement that finally came in May 2017. All cheese production workers at Beecher’s received raises. Every employee at Beecher’s will receive Know Your Rights training provided in a unique partnership between Beecher’s and the Fair Work Center. Supervisors will receive training on how to comply with Seattle’s labor standards, and Beecher’s will enhance its oversight of those employees. And the managing supervisor accused of denying breaks and paid sick leave, retaliating against employees who took leave, and denying overtime pay was fired. Training for employees and supervisors will begin later this year.

While the individual cases we represent are incredibly important for those individual workers – often meaning they can pay the rent on time or put food on the table – we are increasingly looking for cases like Beecher’s, where we can make company-wide or even industry-wide impacts. By working with the Office of Labor Standards on an innovative new model of co-enforcement, we are forging a path in labor standards enforcement with the potential to see powerful, lasting improvements for workers.

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Recap of the Workers’ Rights Tribunal

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On October 26th, 2017, Fair Worker Center, Colectiva Legal del Pueblo, and the Seattle Workers for Justice Coalition co-hosted a workers’ rights tribunal to hear testimony from seven non-union iron workers. They spoke of horrendous working conditions experienced on publicly funded and private construction projects across the region. Many of these workers have been on strike against Bulwark Construction and Walker Rebar for the past year.

The tribunal included community- and elected-leaders from the Puget Sound area.

Workers’ testimony included numerous accounts of unsafe working conditions, lack of training, fear of reporting injuries or unsafe conditions, lack of health benefits for backbreaking and dangerous work, and more. They also talked about how the companies utilize immigrant labor because they know they will work for less

“When I began to work for this company [Bulwark], they never gave me the right training,” said Armando, who also said that despite working long days, he and his coworkers weren’t allowed to take breaks.

Magdelano echoed that statement: “I was working 10-12 hours in a day. No lunch breaks. No water. No gloves. No safety jackets. No hard hat.”

Alfredo said that if he or his coworkers asked for breaks, they were told they could leave if they were unhappy. Alfredo was also badly injured on the job once, but his foreman made him continue working without filing an injury report. He said, “I just kept on working. This is what happens when you get injured. The company skimps on providing insurance, benefits, and everything else.”

After hearing these and other workers’ testimony, the members of the Tribunal agreed to send a letter to Bulwark Construction and Walker Rebar condemning what they heard from the workers and calling on those companies to treat their workers with dignity and respect, comply with labor and employment standards, and recognize their workers right to form a union. Fair Work Center is helping draft this letter and will be part of the coalition of leaders and organizations that deliver it to Bulwark Construction and Walker Rebar.

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October ’17 Fair Work News

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Greetings and welcome to the Fall edition of the Fair Work News!

Nicole Vallestero Keenan

When Fair Work Center opened its doors in April 2015, we had an ambitious vision: a future where every worker in Seattle knows their rights and has the tools to exercise them.

With your support, we are making incredible progress towards realizing our ambitious early vision. So it is with tremendous pride to announce that, after three years as executive director, I am moving on to new challenges with the goal of building a better future with policy advocacy.

Over the past 30 months, we grew from a staff of three people to 11 people, and we have launched several exciting initiatives. Some of my personal highlights include:

  • The Fair Work Collaborative is a partnership of 11 community based organizations convened by Fair Work Center to train workers, advocates, case managers and non-profits about their rights at work. Together, we’ve talked to more than 20,000 people about their rights at work since we started in October 2015.
  • In 2016, we expanded our Know Your Rights outreach and education model to include health and safety trainings. Through a partnership with the University of Washington Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, we developed a curriculum and piloted a training program with more than 120 people trained.
  • In September 2016, we officially launched the Fair Work Legal Clinic. In addition to becoming a fully functioning law firm within Fair Work Center, we are also training the next generation of employment attorneys. Students from the Seattle University and the University of Washington Schools of Law can now enroll in a Workers’ Rights Clinical Course that combines a rigorous academic curriculum with an active practice in employment law in our legal clinic. Since opening, the legal clinic recovered more than $400,000 for workers and provided legal information and referral services to more than 500 workers.
  • Over these past three years, we have also played an active role in advocating for the enforcement of labor standards at the state and local levels. We’ve influenced numerous pro-worker policies, including: the 2015 labor standards enforcement bill, which gave Seattle some of the strongest local enforcement mechanisms in the nation; the secure scheduling ordinance; and the new statewide paid sick and safe leave law – Initiative 1433. And just this summer we advocated to help prevent the City of Tacoma from closing its labor standards enforcement office by cutting its budget.
  • Fair Work Center also partnered with the Center for Innovation in Worker Organizations to inform and support the City of Seattle in taking on directed investigations – meaning the agency can investigate and file charges without an initiating complaint – which is critical for enforcement of standard in industries with high rates of workplace violations and low rates of reporting. Just last week, the Office of Labor Standards announced their ground breaking directed investigation program.

I recently reviewed the initial three-year strategic plan laid out for this organization, and I’m proud to say that we met every goal laid out in that plan. I was recruited to this position to help create a new and innovative labor standards enforcement organization. We have done that. All of this work has been artfully executed by a visionary and talented team of people, and it is time for the next phase of this organization to continue under new leadership. My last day at Fair Work Center will be on November 22nd. However, I will continue to support our visionary board of directors and the organization’s new leadership through the end of the year.

As a gesture of my enduring commitment to the success of Fair Work Center, I am signing up to be a monthly donor. I hope you will join me in matching my gift at $20 a month – please consider donating today!

Thank you for your support of Fair Work Center.

In Solidarity,

 

Nicole Vallestero Keenan
Executive Director

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