As Goldy just posted, eight people were arrested last night for protesting wage theft (as well as fighting for a $15 minimum wage) in front of the downtown McDonalds. It's striking, and stomach churning, to see workers arrested while fighting to regain stolen wages they are legally owed. Why, if wage theft is prohibited by both city (and state) law, is it so common? As Anna and I cover in this week's paper:

In April 2011, the city made it a gross misdemeanor, punishable by loss of a city business license, for Seattle employers to pay less than they were contracted to pay. It was designed to address a national problem: 64 percent of low-wage workers experience wage theft each week, according to a 2008 study by the Center for Urban Economic Development, the National Employment Law Project, and UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. For those workers in blue-collar fields like construction, manufacturing, fast-food work, and even home health care, the theft can eliminate about 15 percent of their annual income.

... The city council has approved other progressive laws in the last few years: One would endow all employees in Seattle with paid sick time off, another make it illegal to ask women to stop breastfeeding in public, and yet another ban employers from asking job applicants about their criminal history, to name a few. But while the city council is happy to pass them, it seems little enforcement backs them up...

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