GOVERNOR SIGNS AG BILL BLOCKING WAGE CHEATS FROM RECEIVING GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 8 2017

OLYMPIA – The governor today signed into law Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s bipartisan legislation prohibiting businesses that have willfully violated state wage theft laws from being awarded government contracts.

Senate Bill 5301 bars companies from receiving both state and local contracts if a judge determines they willfully violated state wage theft laws. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Mark Miloscia, R-Auburn, passed the Senate overwhelmingly in February by 46-3 vote. It passed the House by a 63-33 margin in April. The companion measure, House Bill 1936, was sponsored by Rep. Zack Hudgins, D-Tukwila.

“We need to send a message that the state will not do business with those who cheat hard-working Washingtonians,” Ferguson said. “Government contracts – and taxpayer dollars – should only go to companies that play by the rules.”

The Washington state government spends more than $1 billion annually to buy goods and services – and the state spends billions more on public works contracts – but currently, companies that receive contracts from state and local governments are not always required to demonstrate compliance with wage laws.

“The state should not be supporting businesses that are taking hard-earned dollars from the state’s workers,” said Sen. Miloscia, chair of the Senate State Government Committee. “This change will affirm the state’s commitment to protecting workers and reward businesses who respect the law and take care of their employees.”

“We must stand up in Olympia and say, ‘You will not profit from cheating workers,’ ” Rep. Hudgins said. “This simple change will provide an important incentive for companies to follow the law.”

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L&I investigation results in $66,500 in back pay for 28 workers

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

August 19, 2016
For media information: Matthew Erlich, Public Affairs, Matthew.Erlich@lni.wa.gov, 360-902-6508.

 

Tumwater – A state investigation into a company that closed before paying employees everything they were owed on two public projects has resulted in 28 workers receiving more than $66,500 in back pay.

Eltech Electric Inc. of Seattle abruptly ceased work on the projects at the end of September 2015. Complaints filed with the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries led to an investigation that cleared the way for the workers to be paid.

The workers were involved in two public projects: construction of the Green River Community College student life center in Auburn, and repair work on the state ferry M/V Kaleetan.

The 65,000-square-foot Mel Lindbloom Student Union building opened in February. Prime contractor Walsh Construction required its subcontractors, including Eltech Electric, to have a bond. L&I was able to get money from that bond for the workers who were not fully paid when Eltech closed unexpectedly.

(Read More)

WAGE STEALERS WATCH OUT: Seattle Police join forces with Labor Dept. to catch wage thiefs

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

April 04, 2015

 

(SEATTLE, WA.) — The City of Seattle and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division have agreed formally to share information and coordinate enforcement efforts to combat wage theft, a major problem across the U.S. and an even bigger problem in low-wage industries.

“A Memorandum of Understanding – the first signed by the Wage and Hour Division with a city in its western region – aims to boost the Seattle Police Department’s ability to investigate alleged wage theft cases and, when warranted, forward them for review by the City Attorney’s Office,” according to a Seattle Police statement.

In 2011 the City Council made wage theft – the intentional failure to pay or underpay an employee for work – a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Wage theft is the illegal withholding of wages or the denial of benefits that are rightfully owed to an employee. Wage theft, particularly from low wage legal or illegal immigrant workers, is common in the United States, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports.

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.

Seattle’s New Wage Theft Ordinance Imposes Notice Requirements and Civil Penalties

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

4/16/2015 by Breanna M. Sheetz, Daniel L. Thieme and James Zissler

 

Effective April 1, 2015, a new Wage Theft Ordinance imposes specific wage and tip notice requirements on employers in the City of Seattle.1  The Seattle Office for Civil Rights (SOCR) is granted power to investigate complaints, and employers who violate the Ordinance are subject to orders to pay wages and tips, as well as civil penalties.

What Employers Should Do Immediately to Comply with this Ordinance

Following are the immediate steps that employers should take if they have non-exempt employees2 working in Seattle:

1. Provide immediate notice of the wage theft law to Seattle employees.

Employers must provide notice of employees’ rights under this law in writing (or electronically, as noted below). The SOCR has issued a poster that includes the required information about the new wage theft law, as well as information about Seattle’s new minimum wage law.  The poster is available in English (http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/CivilRights/mwo-poster-english.pdf) and Spanish (http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/CivilRights/mwo-poster-spanish.pdf).  In lieu of displaying the poster, employers can comply with this requirement by reprinting the information in a handbook, or duplicating the poster in another format such as a letter or online system that is accessible by employees.

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Report: Seattle Needs Community Groups To Help Enforce New $15 Minimum Wage

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

For Immediate Release: October 22, 2014

Seattle, WA – Seattle made history by becoming first city in the nation to adopt a $15 minimum wage, but it will need to strengthen its labor standards enforcement to ensure that workers get the raise due to them-and community groups should play a key role in that effort, according to a new report from the National Employment Law Project.

“We don’t have a $15 minimum wage if we don’t enforce a $15 minimum wage,” said Rebecca Smith, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project and the report’s co-author. “Educating the employer community is one key to compliance, but education isn’t enough. A robust wage enforcement system needs strong partnerships with local community organizations-groups that are trusted by workers who might not be willing to file complaints directly with the city.”

(Read Full Press Release Here)

(PDF of Report)

L&I settles $200,000 claim against Whatcom County Jail contractor

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

October 2, 2014

Bellingham – A contractor renovating the Whatcom County Jail has paid nearly $200,000 in back wages owed to 13 workers on the project.

Sierra Detention Systems, of Brighton, Colo., paid the money following a Washington State Department of Labor & Industries investigation, which was spurred by a January worker complaint. The company paid lower apprenticeship wages to electricians.

“We don’t know whether the company’s intent was to avoid paying the higher journeyman wage,” said Jim Christensen, Prevailing Wage Program manager for the agency, who noted this was a first-time offense for the firm. “In this case, the employees were doing the work of electricians and were not part of any state-registered apprenticeship program.”

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City dinged on state audit for work with federal grant

Posted by National Alliance for Fair Contracting on

By Cecilia Garza,  Bainbridge Island Review Staff Writer 

Oct 9, 2014 at 1:23PM

According to a recent review by the Washington State Auditor’s Office, the city of Bainbridge Island is not meeting wage requirements set by one of its federal grant programs.

For the most part, the city complied with state laws and its own policies, the report said.

The audit, however, found that Bainbridge did not quite meet the requirements set by a federal grant for highway planning and construction.

The city’s practices “were inadequate to ensure compliance with federal Davis-Bacon Act (prevailing wage) requirements,” the report said.

The Davis-Bacon Act relates to contractors and subcontractors performing federally-funded projects. It requires that laborers employed under the contract be paid no less than the local prevailing wage and fringe benefits that is paid for similar projects in the area.

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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.

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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)