‘Rob a bank, that’s 10 years’: Gee questions why wage theft earns a ‘slap on the wrist’

Wage theft has taken millions of dollars from construction workers in Washington, as a taxpayer-funded project in Ferndale to construct a new city hall was recently revealed to have involved a subcontractor who underpaid workers by $15, taking a total of $43,000 out of their pockets.

On a larger scale, estimates place 14% of construction workers in Washington as victims of improper payments between 2011 and 2021, adding up to more than $142 million in wages stolen from the workforce.

Gee Scott, co-host of “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio, questioned why wage theft isn’t viewed in the same light as a bank robbery, where both steal money. Still, one receives a significantly harsher punishment, and the other seemingly results in a “slap on the wrist.”

“Wow. You know what gets me about this wage theft conversation? I found out that if you go into a bank, even if you don’t have a firearm, and you just give the bank a note by saying that you want some money out of the till or wherever the case might be, that’s an automatic 10 years in prison, no matter what,” Gee said. “That’s a federal crime. But when it comes to this, more than 1,800 workers in this state right now are still waiting on money that’s theirs. $5.4 million that the state said they earn, and they haven’t collected yet. That’s a problem because the work, the people living in those buildings, the buildings, and stuff like that, the construction, the homes, those are up already.”

Gee proposes a penalty he believes would make employers think twice

Gee proposed a potential punishment that he believes would fit the crime and help crack down on stolen wages.

“I’m curious. When are we really going to crack down on wage theft? You know my opinion on why wage theft happens so much because it’s a slap on the wrist,” Gee said. “If there were a real penalty on wage theft, like, ‘Hey, wage theft at this restaurant? Oh, did you just do that? Wage theft?’ Boom. Liquor license gone for a year, two years. I bet you the wage theft will slow down. Wage theft is something we talk about on the show all the time. We talk about it. We need to talk about it more because it seems like it just goes under the table.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.