Archive for category: Uncategorized

Julia is a Mexican immigrant who works as an apple picker in Washington’s Yakima Valley. Recently, Julia’s supervisor instructed her to tend to a section of apple trees in a field that had been sprayed with pesticides only days before.

Pesticide exposure is a major occupational hazard for farmworkers and their families. In fact, pesticide exposure is attributed to higher rates of health problems among farmworkers’ children, including leukemia and cancer, because parents come home with pesticides on their skin and clothes and expose their children.

Julia knew she shouldn’t have to work in the recently sprayed field, but she didn’t know what to do about it – until she talked to Ricardo, an outreach and education specialist with Fair Work Center & Working Washington.

Julia contacted Ricardo after hearing him on a local Spanish radio call-in show. Julia took Ricardo to the field she was instructed to work in and they took pictures of the signs warning people to stay away because of pesticides.

Together they filed a complaint with Washington’s Department of Safety & Health (DOSH). DOSH confirmed that Julie and her coworkers shouldn’t be working in that field and instructed her employer not to send workers there.

León works in a commercial kitchen located in a grocery store in Yakima.

Conditions in the kitchen were miserable, especially since the air conditioner and other kitchen equipment was broken. Ricardo also supported León in filing a complaint with DOSH, who sent an inspector to verify the broken air conditioner and other equipment. The inspector filed an official request for the grocery store to fix the broken equipment, which they have since done. And, while the inspector was on site, he spoke with León and his coworkers and learned they were also being discriminated against because they are immigrants, so he supported them in filing complaints with the Washington Human Rights Commission.

Now, thanks to Fair Work Center and Working Washington’s presence in the region, Leon and his coworkers are working in a safer and healthier workplace, and are happier too since they are no longer being harassed and discriminated against at work. 

Our presence in the Yakima Valley is possible in part due to funding from the DOSH Safety & Health Investment Project.

Su, a Korean immigrant who worked as an assistant to a hairdresser in Bellevue, answered phones, greeted customers, swept up hair, and provided tea and snacks. She worked 45 hours per week but was paid just $1,000 per month, less than $5.50 per hour. Her employer thought that she could take advantage of Su and her desire to break into the personal care industry, telling her that she was not an employee but an “independent contractor.”

Su knew this was unfair and was referred to the Fair Work Legal Clinic by 21 Progress, one of our Fair Work Collaborative partners. The Legal Clinic represented Su, filing a charge of wage theft on her behalf with Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries (L&I).

L&I initially found that Su’s employer must pay $2,000. But Su brought in her records showing that she was actually owed double that amount. L&I agreed and ordered Su’s employer to pay the full $4,000 she was owed. Su is thrilled with the result and we are thrilled that we could support Su in standing up for her right to a fair wage. That said, L&I could and should have gone further in cases like Su’s.

Unfortunately, in the majority of its cases, L&I does not require that employers pay interest when paying back wages stolen from their workers’ paychecks. This means that if L&I orders payment a year after the theft happened, the employer gets to use the worker’s money during that whole time. This is like an employer taking an interest-free loan from its employees’ paychecks. Meanwhile, low-wage workers – who are disproportionately women, people of color, immigrants and refugees – have the pay the interest on credit card debt or payday loans just to get by. This isn’t right, and Fair Work Center will continue to advocate that L&I must include interest in these wage and hour cases.

If you think you are not being paid the minimum wage, or what you are owed, please call our hotline at 1-844-485-1195, email us at help@fairworkcenter.org, or fill out our our web-form.

No single group has done more to raise standards for low-wage workers over the past decade than low-wage workers. It’s easy to take for granted the annual increases to the minimum wage in Washington, Seattle, SeaTac, and Tacoma that just occurred last week on January 1st. It’s easy to forget how we got here, and just as importantly, who got us here.

In late 2012, Working Washington began organizing in SeaTac with the idea of making every job at the airport a good job. Those efforts resulted Proposition 1, a ballot initiative passed in November of 2013 which raised wages to $15/hour with annual adjustments for inflation for airport and hospitality workers in SeaTac. It also provided paid sick days and provisions that gave workers opportunities for more hours and ensured they received all the tips or service charges they earned.

Six months later, hundreds of fast food workers with Working Washington in Seattle launched strikes across the city, calling for $15 for all workers across the city. Prior to the first strikes, the only fast food workers you heard from in the media were actors in commercials, but through their courageous action, these low-wage workers sparked a citywide debate about the poverty-wage economy and the future of work in Seattle. Despite initially being dismissed as unrealistic by nearly everyone, Seattle’s Fight for $15 was soon embraced by the public and a wide spectrum of leaders in the city.

Check out this video, “Walking Out Into History” for more on the epic win of $15 in Seattle.

The speed and scale of the shift was extraordinary. Workers continued agitating after those first strikes, with additional strikes, a march from SeaTac to Seattle, and a number of creative street actions to turn up the heat on local elected leaders to act. And in less than six months of high profile actions, a $15 minimum wage was a major plank of both mayoral candidates’ platforms and everyone, from City Hall to workplaces large and small, was talking about the inevitability of raising the minimum wage. On May 1, 2014 – just one year after those first fast food workers took to the streets – Mayor Ed Murray announced a proposal to increase Seattle’s minimum wage over the course of the next seven years to $15 or higher for all workers. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fair Work Center comes out of this history. We were founded shortly after $15 was established in Seattle in order to ensure that the new minimum wage – as well as other progressive labor standards workers won like paid sick and safe leave and fair chance employment – was enforced and that workers were getting paid the wages they fought for.

Today we provide know your rights education to thousands of workers each year. We support hundreds of workers in exercising their rights through our legal clinic. And we are partnering with Working Washington to build lasting power for low-wage workers across the state.

For more information on the minimum wage or your other rights on the job, to learn how to access our free legal clinic or arrange a know your rights training in your community, check out www.fairworkcenter.org.

Please join us in shaping the future of worker power on November 1, 5:30-7:30pm at WithinSodo (map). Fair Work Center and Working Washington are joining forces to build a powerful, sustainable and scalable worker organization to advance worker and economic justice in Washington and beyond. Join us in celebrating this alignment and raising funds to fuel the 21st Century workers movement.

We are excited to announce our special guest speaker, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. In addition to his strong resistance to the Trump administration, Bob is a tireless champion for working people in Washington, and we are thrilled he will be joining us.

RVSP online today!

The suggested ticket price is $50, but there is a sliding scale so you can pay what makes the most sense for your budget.

If you have any questions, please contact Hannah Cole (hannah@workingwashington.org).

We look forward to seeing you on November 1st!

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.

“Together, these organizations will help shape and lead the 21^st Century workers’ movement in our region,” said David Rolf, founder and President of the Board of both Fair Work Center and Working Washington. “While each organization has been thriving on its own, the Boards of Directors realized that we could accomplish so much more for low-wage workers by joining the strengths of each organization under a single vision and strategic plan.”

The Boards of Fair Work Center and Working Washington recently hired Rachel Lauter to be the new Executive Director for both organizations.

“This is an important time of transition and growth for both worker-centered organizations and we are thrilled to have Rachel at the helm. Rachel’s combination of legal advocacy, organizational development and Si Se Puede tenacity will ensure that both organizations together become even more powerful in improving lives of low-wage workers,” said State Senator Rebecca Saldaña, Vice President of the Board of Fair Work Center.

“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,” said Lauter. “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.”

Rachel Lauter

Ms. Lauter started on May 29 and will be balancing time between the offices of both organizations while she leads a search for a new location to bring the more than 20 staff together under a single roof. Ms. Lauter moved to Seattle after serving as Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Appointments for Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York City. In that role, she served as the Mayor’s senior personnel advisor, making hundreds of appointments and hiring the most diverse group of senior leaders in New York City history. She also oversaw the operational, administrative, and fiscal functions of the Mayor’s office, served as a policy advisor to the Mayor on issues related to campaign finance, election administration, and voting, and drafted and negotiated dozens of local laws. Prior to joining the de Blasio administration, she served as an Assistant Counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo and as a federal law clerk. Lauter is the co-founder of New Kings Democrats, a Brooklyn-based political organization. She is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, where she served as President of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the oldest student-run legal services provider in the country.

About the Fair Work Center and Working Washington:

Fair Work Center empowers workers to achieve fair employment. We are a hub for workers to understand and exercise their legal rights, improve working conditions and connect with community resources.

Working Washington’s mission is to build a powerful workers movement that can dramatically improve wages and working conditions, and change the local and national conversation about wealth, inequality, and the value of work.