Tag: Office of Labor Standards

City Council, Elections, labor

Former OneAmerica Head Files Ethics Complaint Against Mayoral Candidate Bruce Harrell

By Erica C. Barnett

Rich Stolz, the former head of the immigrant rights group OneAmerica, has filed a formal complaint asking the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission to investigate mayoral candidate Bruce Harrell’s actions as a council member to “discourage [an] investigation” by the city’s Office of Labor Standards into allegations of unpaid sick leave and wage theft brought against the Royal Esquire Club, the Black men’s social club that Harrell chairs.

As we’ve reported, Harrell called the OLS investigator looking into the case to ask for information about the investigation, mentioning that “he helped construct the Office of Labor Standards and would have to look in the future if any changes in funding need to be implemented,” according to the investigator. The club settled the complaint, which involved five women, for a total of just under $11,000 in June 2019.

Four months after the agreement was finalized, Harrell proposed spending $50,000 to survey businesses investigated by OLS, whose employees Harrell called “extremely unprofessional.” In pitching the business poll, Harrell said he had heard from many minority-owned small businesses that were “devastated” or even “forced to close” by enforcement actions over what he called “good-faith disputes” with workers, not “wage theft in the traditional sense.”

In his complaint, Stolz—a González supporter—alleges that Harrell “misused his official position to influence an Office of Labor Standards (‘OLS’) investigation into serious workplace violations at the Royal Esquire Club (‘REC’) when Councilmember Harrell was the Board Chairman. Councilmember Harrell’s misuse of public office included a threat to OLS, with the implication that if OLS did not conclude its investigation in a way that Councilmember Harrell approved, its funding would be in jeopardy.”

His current opponent for mayor, Lorena González, objected back then to what she called a “hit piece on OLS” with “a predetermined outcome,” saying that if someone had conducted a survey of all the people she had sued for labor law violations over the years, “I suspect that the results of that survey would resoundingly say that they hated me, and that… my clients’ claims were frivolous.”

In his complaint, Stolz—a González supporter—alleges that Harrell “misused his official position to influence an Office of Labor Standards (‘OLS’) investigation into serious workplace violations at the Royal Esquire Club (‘REC’) when Councilmember Harrell was the Board Chairman. Councilmember Harrell’s misuse of public office included a threat to OLS, with the implication that if OLS did not conclude its investigation in a way that Councilmember Harrell approved, its funding would be in jeopardy.”

The complaint includes a memo from OLS’ file on the wage theft investigation about an apparently awkward meeting between two OLS investigators and a representative of the club who complained about the investigation and informed them that Mayor Jenny Durkan supports the club and has called herself an “Esquirette.” Continue reading “Former OneAmerica Head Files Ethics Complaint Against Mayoral Candidate Bruce Harrell” →

Business, City Hall, labor

Chamber CEO: Labor Proposals Fail to Consider “Unintended Consequences”

maud-daudon-high-resolution-photoYesterday, I reported that the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is urging its members to challenge proposed new business taxes and potential new worker protections.

In a letter this week, Chamber president and CEO Maud Daudon said business needs to have “an equal seat at the table” during city discussions on proposals to impose “a ‘head tax’ on businesses that would be used in large part to fund labor union and nonprofit outreach to encourage employee complaints; restrictive scheduling laws for shift workers; mandatory paid family leave for all private sector companies; commercial rent control; and an increase in other business taxes to fund additional police officers.”

Earlier today, I broke the news that representatives of the Service Employees International Union filed an initiative with the city that would impose another tax–a $0.01 surcharge for every hour worked by employees in the city–to pay for labor law enforcement and outreach.

This morning, I talked to Daudon about the letter, which she said was intended merely to encourage the city to have “thoughtful conversations” and a “robust dialogue” with the business community before passing laws that might harm businesses.

“The pieces of legislation we’re looking at now are coming at us very quickly, without a lot of engagement,” Daudon says. “I was saying, let’s really look at these things and understand the intended and unintended consequences.”

One of the proposals Daudon says the city needs to study further is secure scheduling (the “restrictive scheduling laws” mentioned in the letter), which would require employers to provide more stable, predictable schedules to their employees, particularly part-time workers.

“We have done some research into how this is going in San Francisco,” which implemented its own version of secure scheduling in 2014, “and we’re hearing mixed reviews,” Daudon says. “The people who want part-time and flexible employment are finding it too restrictive.” Employees in the hospitality industry, for example, may need to work at a funeral or a Seahawks celebration at a moment’s notice, she says.

“We’re saying, let’s do our homework and let’s understand better what’s happening here in Seattle, and what challenges people are having, and how employers are working w their employees. … If you’re trying to address a problem, you need to know what kind of problem you’e trying to fix. Defining the problem is step one, and I don’t think it’s well defined at this stage.”

(Secure scheduling proponents would argue that the problem is clear: Employers are scheduling their workers erratically, without regard for their need for a steady paycheck or a good night’s sleep, and secure scheduling is an effort to fix that.)

I asked Daudon if the Chamber opposes efforts to require employers to provide paid family leave, including maternity leave. Employers are in best position of crafting those things with their employees–it’s not a one-size-fits-all prescription for all employees,” she says, pointing to the Chamber and Women’s Funding Alliance-led 100% Talent initiative, which provides guidelines for employers to voluntarily work toward gender equity, and its 31 “best practices,’ which include some form of paid family leave.

Finally, Daudon explains the Chamber’s opposition to the way the Office of Labor Standards spends its grant funding this way:  “Right now, 75 percent of the calls [to OLS] are coming from employers trying to figure out how to apply the laws, and the rest are coming from employees,” yet 75 percent of grant funding from the office pays for employee outreach and education.  “If you look at the data, it really ought to be 75-25 [employer-employee] but we think minimally, it ought to be 50-50.”

Daudon argues that the current split creates an imbalance of power that favors workers over bosses: “If you [primarily] educate the employee, then it’s kind of a game of gotcha, [especially] if you’re a small business person and you don’t have a robust legal or HR department that knows about these laws.”

But doesn’t the balance of power almost always favor businesses and the Chamber, which buys its “seat at the table” when it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on mayoral and council races?

“I love that you’re think we’re at every table, but I have to kind of laugh at that,” Daudon says. “We certainly try to communicate with the city about what the unintended consequences could be for some of these things, but honestly, I think ]that could be a challenge in this [political[ environment.”

Business, City Hall, labor

SEIU Initiative Would Tax Businesses to Fund Labor Law Enforcement

The Service Employees International Union filed an initiative petition Tuesday to tax Seattle businesses to provide additional funding for the city’s Office of Labor Standards to enforce Seattle labor laws, including mandatory sick and safe leave, the $15 minimum wage, and a law banning employers from asking about criminal records on job applications.

The initiative would impose a 1-cent-per-employee-hour tax on business licenses (in business parlance, a “head tax”); OLS would use the money, according to the initiative, “to contract with community-based employee advocate organizations, or coalitions of advocate organizations, to perform outreach, education, and compliance assistance” to employees and employers in Seattle.”

Essentially, the initiative would require the city to grant funds raised by a tax on businesses to nonprofit organizations (CASA Latina is reportedly a likely contender) to educate workers about their rights under the city’s new labor laws. The money would also pay for direct investigations into alleged violations of the minimum wage, paid sick and save leave, and criminal-history laws.

Under the initiative, 40 percent of the $0.01-per-hour business-license surcharge would fund the OLS directly; 50 percent would pay for contracts with community organizations; and 10 percent would pay for outreach and education to businesses.

I have a call out to SEIU 775 secretary-treasurer Adam Glickman, who signed the letter submitting the initiative proposal to the city clerk. Once the initiative is approved, the group will start collecting signatures for the proposal.

Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Maud Daudon, who is on a Chamber trip in Miami, said she couldn’t comment on the initiative until she’d had a chance to read it. However, Daudon says that in general, “We don’t think the head tax is a good idea,” and that labor law enforcement is “a core city function that should be paid out of the general fund,” not by a tax on employers.

The full letter submitting the initiative to the city clerk is here ;I’ll update when I hear back from Glickman, to whom labor attorney Dmitri Iglitzen, whose office drafted the measure, referred my questions.