Recently Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans announced that her office will dedicate a full-time attorney to enforce wage theft laws. What is wage theft and how serious is this crime?
Wage theft occurs when an employer fails to pay workers the full wages they are legally owed. Common examples include paying less than the minimum wage, denying overtime, misclassifying employees as independent contractors, or simply failing to pay for all hours worked.
Immigrant and undocumented workers are especially vulnerable to wage theft when employers threaten to call ICE when workers demand to be paid or use ones immigration status to discourage complaints about unsafe conditions or unpaid wages. Often times, employers hire workers for cash, and then refuse to pay or disappear after the works is done.
According to the National Institute for Workers’ Rights, workers in the United States lose more money every year to wage theft than to all forms of property crime combined, with more than $15 billion stolen annually and less than 3% recovered.
Depending on the facts, a homeowner or employer who uses immigration threats to avoid paying workers may face both civil and criminal exposure.
Possible criminal issues can include: 1) Fraud – if the employer never intended to pay and hired workers under false pretenses; 2) Extortion – when a threat to report immigration status is used to force workers to accept less pay or no pay at all; and Labor Trafficking – when workers are recruited or controlled through coercion, threats or abuse of power.
Regardless of immigration status, workers may have several options if they are not paid what they are owed: They are permitted to contact the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division to investigate wage complaints, and they can report retaliation and immigration based threats and possibly have a claim for extortion.
Even when workers are detained or deported, it may still be possible to pursue wage claims through authorized representatives, mailed checks, or direct deposit arrangements.
If you or a loved one is in a bind as a result of a criminal allegation, immediately contact a Seattle Criminal Attorney. A Seattle Criminal Defense Attorney is not going to judge you and understands that everyone makes mistakes. Hiring a Seattle Criminal Lawyer to help can – at a minimum – reduce penalties and can help direct people on how to best deal with their DUI charge, and some times even get them dismissed. So, it should go without saying that someone cited for a DUI should hire a qualified Seattle DUI Lawyer as soon as possible. DUI charges can cause havoc on a person’s personal and professional life. Anyone charged with a DUI in Washington State should immediately seek the assistance of a seasoned Seattle DUI Lawyer. SQ Attorneys can be reached at (425) 359-3791 and/or (206) 441-0900.
