unnamed

L&I fines 99 Tunnel subcontractor for failing to pay prevailing wage (WA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Glacier Northwest ordered to provide $370,000 in back pay

By Brandon Macz
2/28/19 12:12 pm

Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries has hit Glacier Northwest with more than $74,000 in civil penalties for reportedly failing to pay workers a prevailing wage for their work disposing of dirt during construction of Seattle’s new State Route 99 Tunnel.

Seattle Tunnel Partners tapped Glacier Northwest as a subcontractor for the project for an estimated $28 million, according to an L&I news release, and tasked the company with disposing of dirt and other materials excavated by the Bertha tunnel-boring machine.

“This was the only project that the Glacier Northwest disposal site was accepting dirt from, so L&I was able to identify the specific workers and hours worked,” the news release states. “Because the tunnel is a public works project, those workers are entitled to prevailing wages, which they did not get.”

The L&I investigation was prompted by a June 2016 complaint, and the labor department reports 46 Glacier Northwest employees were collectively deprived of $370,666 in prevailing wages for spreading around 2.2 million tons of dirt at the former Mats Mats Quarry near Port Ludlow.

Glacier Northwest and STP are appealing the decision by L&I to fine the subcontractor $74,133 and order those workers receive back wages.

The 46 operating engineers were owed a journey level rate of $48.49 per hour, time-and-a-half for overtime and hours worked on Saturdays, and double-time for hours worked on Sundays, according to L&I’s Notice of Violation issued last December.

The range for owed compensation is from nearly $90 to $30,572. Ten engineers are owed at least $20,000 in back pay, according to the Notice of Violation.

(See Article)

SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL TARGETS IC MISCLASSIFICATION, GIG ECONOMY (WA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

February 22 2019

The Seattle City Council passed a resolution this week targeting the misclassification of workers as independent contractors when they should be designated as employees.

The lawmakers requested semi-annual updates to the Council, starting at the end of this year’s third quarter, on what the Office of Labor Standards and Labor Standards Advisory Commission is doing to investigate and correct misclassifications.

“There are more and more employees who are being categorized as contractors and are not eligible to receive access to our labor laws,” Councilmember Lisa Herbold during Tuesday’s meeting, GeekWire reported. She said she had ongoing conversations with a driver for Amazon Flex, human cloud platform that enables drivers to deliver packages with their own cars.

“Companies pay the drivers to do the work of employees but treat them as independent contractors, denying them basic amenities like healthcare benefits [and] worker compensation,” Herbold said.

The resolution asks the Office of Labor Standards, the city department that investigates and enforces the city’s labor laws, to:

  • Propose policy solutions to help address this issue of misclassification.
  • Develop enforcement strategies and subject matter expertise to resolve misclassification inquiries and complaints
  • Develop outreach and education strategies for the Office of Labor Standards to inform workers and employers.
  • Work with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations on those issues most appropriately addressed by the state, and incorporate them into the city’s 2020 State Legislative Agenda.
  • Work with experts in employment law to perform a thorough legal analysis on ways to mitigate the adverse impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Epic Systems Corp v. Lewison Seattle workers’ ability to band together to challenge an employer’s illegal acts.

(Read More)

unnamed

BUILDING A FIGHT FOR BETTER WAGES IN SEATTLE (WA)

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Steve Leigh reports from Seattle on a solidarity rally organized by rank-and-file building trades workers who are fighting to win their fair share.

Steve Leigh
June 6, 2018

SEATTLE IS in a building boom, but most building trades workers can’t afford to live in the city.

That was the message that 150 members and allies of CORE 46, the Caucus of Rank-and-File Electrical Workers in International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 46, delivered at a rally on May 31.

The level of construction activity in Seattle is three times what it was in 2011. Contractors and developers are making money hand over fist. CORE 46 has been fighting for decent union contracts and against an unresponsive union leadership since a poor contract was settlement three years ago. In one section of IBEW Local 46, union leaders imposed an inferior contract after members had voted it down several times. Another section of the local is organizing to make sure the same doesn’t happen to them.

In order to step up the fight, CORE 46 organized a “Cross Trades Rally” of all the construction trades in downtown Seattle. The theme was solidarity between all the trades, and with workers in general.

One sheet metal worker explained, “Even with the building boom, the contractors in Seattle are demanding a wage freeze in our next contract. Outside the city, they’re demanding a 30 percent wage cut.”

Others noted that even workers in trades that are being offered a raise won’t get enough to keep up with the rising cost of living.

(Read More)

Seattle Minimum Wage and Wage Theft Ordinances Take Effect April 1, 2015

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

4/1/2015 by Portia Moore, Paula Simon

 

 

Two significant wage-related ordinances take effect on April 1, 2015, impacting all employers with employees who work in Seattle, whether regularly or occasionally.

The Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance: Minimum wages rise for all employees who perform at least two hours of work in Seattle in a two-week pay period. The Ordinance sets forth additional record-keeping and notice posting requirements, along with provisions on joint employers and integrated enterprises. The city’s new Office of Labor Standards (OLS), which is part of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR), has just released the final administrative rules that guide how the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance is interpreted and enforced, available here, along with an extensive FAQ sheet, available here.

The Seattle Wage Theft Ordinance: Although the City of Seattle originally passed a Wage Theft Ordinance in 2011 (amending SMC 12A.08.060), the sole complaint mechanism provided by the 2011 law involved the filing of a criminal complaint to law enforcement. Starting Wednesday, April 1, 2015, a new administrative process will allow employees to file wage theft charges with the OLS.

Since 2006, construction workers on city projects lost more than $275,000 in wages

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

Wage theft is prevalent, even among construction projects paid for by the city of Seattle.

The city’s Department of Finance and Administrative (FAS) employs six people to monitor wage theft among city construction contracts. Four have been working on the issue since 2006, but last year the council approved two more employees to address an uptick in wage-theft complaints.

Since 2006 the city’s investigators were able to pay construction employees more than $275,000 in recovered wages.

“This is not a unique issue to Seattle,” said Nancy Locke, director of city purchasing, describing how wages are intentionally and unintentionally withheld from workers.

(Read More)

Seattle contractor who threatened workers with deportation to steal wages sentenced

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

A Seattle contractor who’d landed more than $1.1 million in government contracts was sentenced Friday to three months in jail for scamming workers out of pay as part of a scheme to underbid his competitors.

Dathan Williams’ thefts from his workers were uncovered following an intensive investigation that saw a Seattle police officer trained as a drywall installer and inserted into his company. Williams, 33, bragged about threatening his employees with deportation when they asked to be paid correctly.

Williams, 33, appears to have been targeted as part of a larger investigation into claims that Washington subcontractors are abusing workers and ignoring wage laws meant to keep opportunistic contractors from underbidding those paying higher wages.

(Read More)

Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage, Setting a New Standard for Big Cities

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
SEATTLE – The City Council here went where no big-city lawmakers have gone before on Monday, raising the local minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum, and pushing Seattle to the forefront of urban efforts to address income inequality.
The unanimous vote of the nine-member Council, after months of discussion by a committee of business and labor leaders convened by Mayor Ed Murray, will give low-wage workers here – in incremental stages, with different tracks for different sizes of business – the highest big-city minimum in the nation.

“Even before the Great Recession a lot of us have started to have doubt and concern about the basic economic promise that underpins economic life in the United States,” said Sally J. Clark, a Council member. “Today Seattle answers that challenge,” she added. “We go into uncharted, unevaluated territory.”

(Read More)