Summer 2018 Fair Work News

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Hello and welcome to the Summer 2018 edition of the Fair Work News!

My name is Rachel, and I am the new Executive Director of Fair Work Center and Working Washington.

Rachel Lauter

Yes, you read that right, I am the new ED of both organizations!

Fair Work Center and Working Washington are coming together to build a powerful, sustainable and scalable worker organization to advance worker and economic justice in Washington and beyond.

By aligning the legal, community education, advocacy and organizing strategies of each organization, we will bring a comprehensive approach to supporting workers in Seattle and throughout Washington. We’ll be a one-stop shop for low-wage workers, connecting them with efforts to change policies impacting their lives or with the legal services and support they need to achieve fair employment and get justice on the job.

Fair Work Center is known for our community-based approach to workers’ rights and enforcement of labor standards. Our deep relationships with nonprofit organizations in the region enable us to engage low-wage workers most likely to be victims of workplace violations, including low-wage women, people of color, immigrants and refugees, LGBTQ people, and young people.

Working Washington is known for its groundbreaking campaigns to raise standards for workers, including leading the fast food worker strikes that led to $15 in Seattle, passing the nation’s first secure scheduling ordinance, and creating new standards for domestic workers long operating in the shadows of labor and employment law.  

Together, we will help shape the 21st Century workers’ movement in our region.

You can already see it in action. The Seattle City Council just passed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, a historic law that sets minimum standards for domestic workers and establishes a standards board that will serve as a new model of worker organizing. Working Washington was a central partner in the Seattle Domestic Workers Alliance, the coalition that advocated for the bill, and the Fair Work Center stands ready to educate workers about these new standards and enforce the new law.

I’m honored to take on this role and am eager for the challenge ahead. Organizations like Fair Work Center and Working Washington are playing increasingly vital roles in building and sustaining power for low-wage, unrepresented workers, and together we can accomplish so much more than either organization can on its own.

I started on May 29 and my first order of business is finding a new space to house the 20 or so staff that make up both organizations. You can read more about my background here. There will be more changes coming, so stay tuned and let me know if you have any ideas for ways we can do more for low-wage workers in Washington.

In Solidarity,

Rachel

Summer 2018 Fair Work News

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RE: ATTORNEY GENERAL BOB FERGUSON’S ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING “NO POACHING” PROVISIONS

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July 12, 2018
[Cross-posted at workingwa.org/media]

The following remarks were made by Rachel Lauter, Executive Director of Working Washington and Fair Work Center, in regard to Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s announcement that to avoid a lawsuit, seven fast food corporations will remove “no-poach” provisions from their franchise agreements:

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“Workers who fight to raise their pay or take on wage theft and other workplaces issues are often dismissed and told to ‘get a better job’.

These ‘no-poaching’ agreements show that employers sometimes make it harder for worker to get that better job. They make it harder for workers to improve their circumstances. They stand in the way of opportunity.

But today that’s coming to an end.”

The following comments were made by Working Washington member Merlee Sherman, who works as a courier for Jimmy Johns:

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“I’m a driver and a manager in training at Jimmy John’s, and what these no poaching clauses actually look like is suppressed pay and limited mobility for people within the company.

There has not been mobility for me to receive better pay at another Jimmy John’s based on my experience. There have not been options for me to go to another store and receive a better wage. All of those have been limited within the company itself.

Today’s settlement is a giant step for those of us who want to use our skills. Food education in general is my niche, it’s my passion, it’s my career. I want to share my skills with those coming into the food industry and I can’t do that if I can’t put food on the table.”