We're asking the state to require that any worker who’s paid less than three times the minimum wage (about $75,000 a year) gets time-and-a-half if they work more than 40 hours a week — regardless of whether or not they're hourly or salaried, and no matter what fancy title their boss gives them.
Read More"We were generally required to work 45 hours per week or so, but could work as many as 70 to 80."
“Because it didn’t cost my employer anything to keep me working whatever hours they wanted, they didn’t have to take my time into consideration. And so they didn’t.”
Read More"my annual salary was $34,000 a year, with no paid overtime"
As a full-time employee in administration and development, my annual salary was $34,000 a year, with no paid overtime. I was responsible for training volunteers outside of normal work hours, working programmed events that took place from 6 - 10 PM, and administering our annual gala and other fundraising events associated with a major capital campaign, so I frequently worked overtime without compensation.
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"In exchange, I worked 60-90 hours every single week."
"I was a chef/kitchen manager at a restaurant in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle and got paid a salary of $29,000 a year.
In exchange, I worked 60-90 hours every single week.”
Read More"Businesses can never pay you what your time is worth — your time is invaluable. But they don’t even try."
They try to make folks exempt so they don’t have to pay extra. The way everything works, there’s so much turnover in doing the job. So if I can’t fill a shift any other way, then I have to fill in the shift myself. The shift has to be filled. If one of my hourly staff does it, it’s overtime pay. If I do it, it’s free for the company. But it’s the same shift.
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"No one should have to work 65 hours a week and get paid for 40."
When companies classify workers like me as "overtime exempt," they're basically getting free labor. There were days where I'd spend 14 hours at work instead of 10 because my night cook got sick. I ran through that restaurant like a hurricane, forgetting to take breaks, forgetting to eat even when there was food right in front of me. Someone had to pick up the slack, and since I was the manager, it fell to me. But it affected the entire staff — constantly working unpaid overtime put me at odds with my crew and made me a worse manager.
Read MoreThird round of official comments on overtime rulemaking
We urge the Department to establish an overtime exemption threshold calculated at three times the locally applicable minimum wage, which is approximately where the threshold was when our economy saw the most widely shared prosperity. This is the simplest, most transparent, and most appropriate way to reflect actual conditions in the job market. Pegging the threshold to this mark will benefit workers, employers, and the economy by providing workers more money to contribute to the economy, more time to invest in their communities, increased opportunity, higher productivity, and benefits to workplace health & safety.
Read MoreSecond round of official comments to L&I on overtime scoping
The current national standard is wildly inadequate for Washington state workers, and we cannot wait for further federal action.
Read More8 hours for what we will
Overtime pay after 40 hours of work first became a movement more than 100 years ago. But today it’s no longer a reality for hundreds of thousands of working people in our state. More and more of us are working more and more hours — but we're not getting paid for it.
Read MoreOfficial comments to L&I on overtime scoping
Overtime should be the default, not the exception: The single most important way employers signal a worker’s special Executive, Administrative, or Professional status is through the amount of money they pay them.
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