Even if you aren't familiar
with the term wage theft,
you may have been a victim of
it if you've ever worked hours
that you should have gotten paid
for and never got that money,
you can file a complaint with
Washington state and some law students.
Here in Seattle are helping
workers do just that.
Inside the workers rights
clinic near 12th and Columbia,
here's the file in
Seattle University and UW Law.
Students take calls from
clients across the state.
Clinic is a it's a law school course, right?
And so these are upper level students who,
some of whom are planning to practice
employment law, and some of whom
have interests in knowing more,
they have backgrounds that
draw them to the the course.
And so the students in the clinic meet
pretty much weekly with low wage workers,
and those workers have have reached out
because something's happening at work.
And so the students talk with the worker and
kind of identify what the workers goals are,
and then they identify any legal issues
rights that the workers may have.
They go off and do research about that,
and then they call the worker back and
talk through what the workers rights are.
Sometimes if we think it can be valuable.
We stay involved.
We represent the worker in making a claim,
maybe writing in demand letter.
And sometimes that's just enough
for to for to give the client some
information about what their rights are.
Most of their cases involve
allegations of wage theft,
any variety of not getting paid at all,
not getting paid, minimum wage, overtime,
we are, as you've already heard,
seeing a lot of paid sick
leave violations this year,
especially retaliation.
And we have workers come to the clinic.
They generally don't have only
one issue and so one of the things
that we talk about a lot in the
clinic is making sure you've
asked all the right questions.
That includes not getting the paid sick
time they're legally owed this year.
They say those complaints are up.
Can I add a couple things in there?
Imelda, we joined Nathaniel Putnam
as he logged on with a client who
claims she was denied earned sick
time as her mental health suffered
following the death of her father.
I felt like. What happened wasn't fair,
and I had a feeling that
it wasn't fair because.
Usually I just let things pass,
but this just wasn't.
It wasn't feeling right with me,
so I just started looking up some
lawyers and I've found a few,
but they weren't really doing this kind
of cases particularly particularly,
and so I just kept looking until I
found the clinic and I just like.
Put my information for a consult
and then they reached out to me
working with professors at the clinic.
Putnam helped form legal recommendations
and walked her through filing a claim.
The investigation is ongoing.
It's just been so great to
see her be able to say no.
I deserved this.
And I was denied that.
And now I can still get what
I deserve. What I earned
Putnam's passion for. The clinic came
from his own work and life experiences.
I grew up in a working household with
a single working mother who sacrificed
so much so that I can get an education.
And I come from a family where
we had been working in factories
and in farms for generations.
And seeing the toll that.
It takes on people and hearing the
stories of what people had been through.
Really gave me a sense that.
The harm that can happen at
work doesn't have to happen.
Other students in the course
like Victoria Kraeger also bring
their backgrounds to the table.
I grew up in a Union household.
My father was a letter carrier with the USPS,
and so I've always been taught
that unions were a good thing,
even though there are few
and far between nowadays.
But then after I graduated undergrad,
I actually worked in retail,
which as we know is a.
Typically a low paying low wage job,
and then when I came to law school,
at first I wasn't quite
sure what I wanted to do,
but having that background
and knowing how workers rights
are so important to me,
I was able to find a place here
at the workers rights clinic.
Dexter Bradford and Rachel Sugar are
working with a client they say was
working in healthcare when he was denied
owed sick time and retaliated against.
If you know if you feel like
you've been wronged. Talk
to somebody. See, reach out.
See what your rights are exactly because
you might have a much bigger case on
your hands than you were assuming
just entering that workers are aware
that they have rates that they
have the power to use those rates.
They think that often there's such a power
imbalance between employees and employers,
and because we depend on our employers
to pay the bills to keep food in
their fridges and can feel so scary to
challenge your employer anything quite,
we're all here.
To do is help bolster people's
ability to do that and make sure
that they have the protection and
backup of the law behind them to
make sure that they're doing that
and they're successful in that.
There are several ways Washington
workers can try to get the wages
they're owed anyone in the state
can file a complaint on the
labor and industries website.
The City of Seattle also has
its own protections.
The Office of Labor Standards takes
complaints and conducts investigations,
or you can contact a clinic like this one.
To get free guidance,
you do deserve to be paid.
Reach out. Find some.
There's legal help out there
that's willing to help you,
along with helping each client.
The clinic hopes their work will help
affect lasting change with employers and
educate the community on workers rights.