o The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries investigates all of the wage-payment complaints it receives, as required by state law. Workers may file a wage complaint online at lni.wa.gov/workplacerights, or by calling 866-219-7321.
o More information on the Wage Payment Act can be found at: lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/Wages/WagePayAct/default.asp
o Number of wage complaints received in 2013: 3,867. In 2014 the number is expected to reach more than 4,500.
o Wages returned to workers in 2013: $3.3 million
George Tsugawa: Woodland man tells students of life in internment camp
o The Washington State Department of Labor & Industries investigates all of the wage-payment complaints it receives, as required by state law. Workers may file a wage complaint online at lni.wa.gov/workplacerights, or by calling 866-219-7321.
o More information on the Wage Payment Act can be found at: lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/Wages/WagePayAct/default.asp
o Number of wage complaints received in 2013: 3,867. In 2014 the number is expected to reach more than 4,500.
o Wages returned to workers in 2013: $3.3 million
Tanya Bachman: Art teacher molds students with her can-do attitude
David Speer: Labor & Industries agent helps employees, mends fences
Ryan Hurley: Building community key for developer of Sparks building
You might think it takes a bulldog to force employers who stiff their workers to cough up the money they owe under Washington law.
Then you meet David Speer, whose soft-spoken manner, appetite for fairness and flair for conflict resolution disabuse you of that notion.
As an industrial relations agent for the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, the 37-year-old Vancouver resident is one of 16 investigators statewide who examine wage complaints filed against employers under the Wage Payment Act.
He listens to both parties, follows the facts and, if possible, helps resolve problems before they balloon into bigger ones. “I’m here to help both sides,” he says. That includes securing justice for workers when violations are discovered or handing employers a clean bill of health when no abuses have occurred.
While it’s the kind of behind-the-scenes work that rarely captures headlines, it’s nonetheless important to the livelihoods of workers who have been wronged. The state receives about 3,900 wage complaints per year, mostly from the construction and food service industries. Since passage of the Wage Payment Act in 2006, L&I has collected and returned about $13 million in unpaid wages to nearly 20,000 workers in the state.
And although Speer is no in-your-face investigator, he’s no less effective at the job he’s been doing for eight years. Last fall, he reached a milestone, according to L&I, resolving nearly 1,900 complaints totaling some $2 million in wages returned to workers.
Speer exudes modesty about his accomplishment.
“The dollar amounts aren’t necessarily what brings the satisfaction,” he says. “I think it’s when the worker comes back and says, ‘Listen, this really helped me out. I was nearing bankruptcy or losing my house.’ “
‘A big adjustment’
Speer’s talent for working with people, including sorting through and ironing out conflicts, stems as much from his upbringing as it does from his professional experiences.
Growing up in The Dalles, Ore., he witnessed his parents build up a small business and saw how his father, a deacon with Calvary Baptist Church, maintained strong relationships in the community. It didn’t take him long to demonstrate his own capacity for leadership and for relating to others. In high school, Speer was elected class president. And, under a “peer helper” program, he became a go-to person for classmates struggling with personal problems.
“That’s something I did for two years in a row in high school,” he says. “I got some great training from that.”
At George Fox University, Speer obtained a degree in business management. Out of college, he went to work as an aide for a financial planning firm. He was on a path to becoming a full-fledged financial planner, when all of a sudden it just didn’t feel right.
“I remember feeling like I didn’t have enough life experience to really give advice,” he said. So he resigned on his own terms with the idea that he might return to the firm one day.
Instead, he landed a job with L&I in Seattle as a revenue officer tasked with ensuring employers were paying their workers compensation premiums. Suffice it to say, not every company was happy to hear from him. “I’m kind of a peacemaker at this point in my life,” he said, recalling the experience, “and so that was a big adjustment for me in having to build by confidence and be firm … as far as dealing with difficult people.”
He made the adjustment, and then some. At one point, he says, he “hit a million dollars in collections. I was doing all right.” But it wasn’t just about collecting dollars. To help companies avoid problems, he spoke to them about their workers’ comp obligations, reminding them of things to stay on top of as they grew.
The time Speer spent in Seattle helped him grow professionally. He worked with companies large and small, he says, “so you had a nice diversity there.” But he and his wife also were looking to move closer to their families. So when the job in Vancouver opened in 2006, Speer made the jump.
A positive impact
At any given time, he juggles some 50 to 70 wage-complaint cases. A recent one still stands out for him. It involved two men who’d launched a small restaurant and were employing a friend of theirs. They paid him a salary, but he was working 45 hours a week and not receiving what he was entitled to: overtime pay.
There’s a “common misconception that if you pay someone a salary you don’t have to pay them overtime,” Speer said. But it’s a person’s job duties — not how he or she is paid — that determines whether overtime must be paid. After his employer refused to pay overtime, the worker quit and filed a complaint.
When Speer sat down and spoke to the restaurant owners he discovered they’d simply been unaware of the rules. They admitted they were wrong and promptly paid the worker the overtime they owed. They also offered him his job back, and he took it.
Looking back on it, Speer says he feels like he was able to not only help the worker get paid but to also help “kind of mend that relationship.” In addition to handling wage complaints, Speer takes a proactive approach by conducting quarterly workshops for businesses to walk them through their obligations.
And when he heads to work every day, he does so with a focus on helping people. When you’re able to have a positive impact on “the people around you, neighbors, businesses,” Speer says, “there’s satisfaction to that.”
