Nearly two years after Seattle City Council’s dramatic (and ultimately failed) attempt to tax big businesses on a per-employee basis, Washington state lawmakers are taking a new approach–this time widening the tax net to encompass businesses in all of King County. Like the City Council’s so-c... (Read More)

Washington state’s workers’ compensation arm spends a lot of time and resources investigating employers and employees suspected of defrauding the public safety net program that acts as a lifeline for workers injured on the job. Sometimes, the worker’s comp division itself comes under scrutiny... (Read More)

Sometimes workers’ compensation isn’t enough to cover the fallout from an injury sustained on the job. That’s been the case for Daniel Lyon Jr., the only surviving firefighter in the Twisp River blaze of 2015. But five years and one appeal later, Lyon’s lawyers negotiated a $5 million settle... (Read More)

When it comes to wage theft, a company's popularity isn't a measure of how well it treats its employees. Just ask Lowell’s Restaurant, a reputable attraction in Seattle’s Pike Place Market for more than 60 years. The eatery recently settled a lawsuit involving 186 current and former workers on ... (Read More)

Disability discrimination often isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. Especially for mental disabilities that aren’t well understood. But ignorance of a disability and the laws protecting disabled employees is no defense for firing someone, as a recent federal lawsuit involving Bellingha... (Read More)

Independent contractor or full-time employee? Which of these two buckets a worker falls into can have far-reaching implications for their career, including how much they earn, how much they're taxed, what kinds of benefits (if any) they receive and whether they have access to worker protections. ... (Read More)

American women roared into the workforce in the last month of 2019, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department, accounting for about 139,000 of the 145,000 jobs added to the economy in December. It was enough to tip the jobs scale in favor of women for only the second time, giving them 50.04 ... (Read More)

On the heels of California’s landmark AB 5 law requiring some companies in the on-demand “gig” economy to treat thousands of self-employed contractors like regular employees, the Seattle City Council expanded worker protections for gig workers. Lawmakers in New York and New Jersey are expect... (Read More)

Workers in Washington state are set to benefit from a range of new laws in 2020. From nation-leading minimum wages and overtime benefits to unprecedented restrictions on noncompete agreements, Washington is in many ways a great place to be employed. But as many of those new worker protection laws g... (Read More)

Falls, trips and slips are consistently among the top ways workers get seriously injured or worse on the job. In 2018, Washington state witnessed 7,400 injuries and 17 deaths from work-related tumbles, according to statistics from the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). Not s... (Read More)