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Over the past year, OLS has moved a total of more than $5 million from gig companies to 24K+ gig workers in Seattle for violations of the sick leave and hazard pay laws. And that’s on top of the millions of dollars workers are already getting when companies comply with the law by providing paid sick time and paying $2.50/job hazard pay.
Here’s the rundown.
Read MoreThere once was an owner confounded…
Read MoreGoPuff is raking in billions because of its “innovative” business model: hiring gig workers for shift work at just $3 per job. These subminimum wages are nothing new in the gig economy — companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash also pay subminimum wages to workers on the promise of flexibility.
But GoPuff takes it a step further. They call their workers "independent contractors" so they can get away with paying subminimum wages, but GoPuff doesn't even bother to pretend workers have real flexibility. GoPuff drivers work on scheduled shifts, have to take whatever orders they're given, and even report to managers.
That means workers get the worst of both worlds: none of the protections that come with being an employee, and none of the flexibility that's important to many people who do gig work.
Read MoreDrive Forward is an Uber-funded business organization whose board is controlled by Uber corporate executives. Drive Forward receives funds from Uber to advance Uber’s goals and priorities, including lobbying elected officials in support of Uber’s positions, and speaking to reporters to advance Uber’s public relations agenda.
Read MoreOn June 10 of last year, Instacart told customers that “access to same-day grocery delivery could be at risk” if City Council passed hazard pay.
But now, a year later, biz is booming, their CEO is a billionaire, they’re rolling out even faster delivery in Seattle, and they’re….*checks notes*…still here.
Read MoreAs part of the Seattle Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, we won the creation of an innovative, first-in-the-nation Domestic Workers Standards Board: a place for workers and employers to come together and make formal recommendations to the city about how we can continue improving conditions for workers.
Three years later, how’s it going? Over the past few months, nannies and housecleaners have come together on a list of recommendations to the city, focusing especially on the widespread lack of paid time off in the industry. Nearly two-thirds of nannies and house cleaners in the Seattle area can’t take paid time off when they’re sick to stay home and get healthy.
So domestic workers are leading an innovative solution — and last week, they brought their formal recommendations directly to the Seattle City Council.
Read More“It’s becoming a struggle. Everybody is at the beck and call of these corporations. There should be a consensus in society that people deserve to be able to eat." — Raymond, Seattle gig delivery worker, speaking to The Seattle Times.
Read MoreGuest post by Shira Cole, dancer & organizer with Working WA’s Strippers Are Workers campaign
Stripping is a job. And strip clubs are the only legal platform where women can charge men for what they are expected to do for free just about anywhere else.
In states with less restrictive regulations, dancers — largely women, especially women of color, and nonbinary people — can make significantly more money than they would in other industries. This job has been a pathway for many of us out of single parenthood, out of homelessness, out of abusive relationships, and into financial independence.
That means there’s no protection against monopolistic clubs that charge us $200 a night in house fees just to be allowed to work — and we can go home owing the club money if business is slow.
And here in WA, puritanical regulations like the alcohol ban & municipal ordinances regulating our conduct have led to a strain on our income — and our safety. There are risks and problems in our industry, but criminalizing us has made all of our problems worse. For example, I can’t even tell my customers what my personal boundaries are during a dance because I’m implicating myself criminally by telling him what he can do. For fear he may be an undercover cop, I just wait until he does something I don’t allow to tell him “no.”
They’re enforced arbitrarily, and virtually impossible to follow, so the threat of being cited can always be held over us. For dancers of color, the issue is magnified by the threat of discriminatory policing & racist enforcement of policies by the clubs themselves.
And restrictions on zoning & the ban on alcohol in clubs have given rise to a monopoly that owns the vast majority of clubs in our state, by deterring new clubs from opening up — making it harder for us to exercise our rights at work for fear of being blacklisted by Deja Vu.
For many women, dancing offers a sense of empowerment. For single parents, it’s one of the few entry-level jobs that can cover the cost of childcare and offers a flexible schedule. For workers with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mental health issues, it offers the ability to take time off as needed. Dancing is not the solution to these problems, but it is a solution.
Stripping enabled me to buy my own home by myself, and leave relationships before they got abusive. This job is empowering, and we need laws led by strippers, for strippers, to give us agency and autonomy in our work. We’ve been suffering too long from layers of oppressive, sexist, puritanical, unnecessary laws and racist systems, and we’ve had enough.
What do we want? Rights, not rescue. Labor protections, not monopoly protections.
This May Day, join us in making huge changes by workers, for workers, by signing on to our open letter & sharing it to help make sure our voices are heard.
Workers came together to achieve some major victories this session. We helped lead a broad coalition of organizations to win $465 million in additional cash relief for undocumented workers. We passed laws expanding the legal tools workers can use to enforce their rights and making sure that more workers have access to free legal help. And we joined the fight to pass the state’s first capital gains tax on extraordinary profits, taking a first step towards taxing the rich and funding a just recovery.
Check out the full recap of What Workers Won in the 2021 WA legislative session — and then rate how you think the legislature did…
Read More“I’d worked as a home health care aide for 20 years, but was injured on the job and had to find work I could do despite my injuries. Accessibility of gig work was important to me, but I soon found myself having to work constantly just to make ends meet.”
Gig workers are calling on the Seattle City Council to make the gig economy Pay Up Now by passing new laws that raise pay, protect flexibility, and provide transparency.
Working Washington | 719 3rd Ave, Seattle, WA, 98104, United States
