"We get our schedule four days in advance, on Thursday night for the Monday following. Childcare is a huge issue. I have to scramble on Thursday night to make sure my children are taken care of." — Misty Brown, an Olive Garden worker in Olympia
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"Being a software tester in the video game industry is its own kind of augmented reality."
Making games has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. I just never knew someone would take advantage of my passions. It’s incredibly rare to get a salaried position testing video games—something like one out of a thousand—so I felt like I had achieved a dream when I got that job. I never spoke up because I didn’t want to rock the boat. Those who did speak up were seen as venomous, and they were let go.
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"it wasn’t long before I was told I was being put on salary"
Then one day I realized that I was now working for less than minimum wage, in part because our salaries did not rise when minimum wages went up. There certainly was nothing prestigious about that kind of salaried work.
Read MoreAfter four decades of inaction, L&I releases "pre-draft" towards updated overtime rules
Restoring overtime rights could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of salaried workers, including front-line managers in food and retail; underpaid professionals in social work, research, and other fields; numerous office and clerical workers; more than a few journalists; and many others.
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"It was advertised as 9-6 but after starting I found out that was just the minimum hours."
I didn’t learn that my last job was classified as overtime-exempt until I had already quit my other job and was signing contracts on my first day. It was advertised as 9-6 but after starting I found out that was just the minimum hours.
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I counted the hours I put in and it’s like 15-20,000 total. That’s a lot of time to devote to a restaurant.
I work twelve to fifteen hours a day, four days a week and get paid $36,000 in salary, plus tips. The tips are probably putting me close to $40,000 a year. I’m 43, turning 44. It doesn’t sound very old, but working these kinds of hours, you can’t do it forever. I’m reaching the end of my ability to work that pace.
Read More"As a manager you just stayed to get the work done."
They wanted to save on payroll as much as possible, so if an hourly employee called out sick and you were overtime-exempt, the expectation is that you're going to stay. And you’d be doing literally the same job as the person who called out, and then also your other job. Some hourly person called out sick, and I'm a free body. It was pretty common to be there for 13 hour days.
Read MoreRegarding Amazon's $15/hour announcement this morning
Amazon’s embrace of the $15 minimum wage comes five and half years after fast food workers in Amazon’s hometown walked out on strike and won the fight for $15.
Read MoreWashington employers will take $4 billion of time and money from salaried workers — this year alone
Time is money, and employers are taking both — to the tune of $4 billion worth from salaried workers in our state this year alone. That startling figure is a rough estimate of what is lost by salaried workers who have been working more and more hours — without getting paid for it.
Read MoreThe chair of the campaign to repeal $15 for Seattle is now expanding her chain... in Seattle. The debate is officially over.
Four years ago, the owner of the Flying Apron bakery chaired the failed effort to repeal Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law. Now they’re expanding, because it’s clear even in their own finances that raising wages raises up the whole economy.
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