Wage Theft

Employers can be criminally prosecuted for failing to pay wages promised to their workers. If an employer is convicted of the gross misdemeanor, the City can also revoke the employer's business license.

A worker who believes he/she has been paid less that the minimum wage, or forced to work off the clock, or not paid for all the hours work, or not paid the amount promised, or not paid overtime, can file a complaint by:

• Calling the City's Office of Labor Standards at (206) 256-5297
• Filing a report online at www.seattle.gov/laborstandards/investigations/file-a-complaint 
  

The Office of Labor Standards will investigate and may forward its report to the Criminal Division for a decision on whether to file the charge. Then Criminal Division attorneys will work with the victim toward making a provable case.

To strengthen its efforts against wage theft, the City agreed recently to share information and coordinate enforcement efforts with the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor.

"Enforcement of wage theft crimes is much more than just recovering money owed to the worker who earned it," City Attorney Pete Holmes says. "Holding employers accountable for wage theft is a matter of preserving human dignity and protecting those who are most vulnerable in our community."