By Lizz Giordano
Picture this: you work a full shift, but your boss only pays you for part of it. Or you're putting in overtime hours without seeing a higher pay rate. This is wage theft. And it's what we're diving into this week.
Experts say it’s a huge problem spread over a large number of people. But a hard number to estimate, because the more vulnerable the worker the less likely they are to come forward.
Two studies surveying workers in the largest US cities found that between 17-25% of low wage workers had been cheated out of pay. That's up to one in four workers.
Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries is tasked with investigating wage theft complaints submitted to the state. For many workers, filing a complaint with L&I is their only option, because the amounts involved are typically too small to hire a lawyer.
In 2025, L&I found workers that filed complaints were underpaid by $6.7 million. Of that, about 60% has been collected and paid out to workers.
“Wage theft is one of those problems that not a lot of people have great visibility to. But really, collectively, the amount of money that's stolen from employees dwarfs the amount of money that's taken from thefts and burglaries and robberies. It's exponentially higher,” said Washington Attorney General Nick Brown.
Last year, the AG announced the formation of a Worker’s Rights Unit to address wage theft. Brown wants the new unit to take a different approach than L&I.
“We're hoping that this new year that we'll be able to address issues affirmatively based on our own research, based on information that we're getting from stakeholders impacted communities, and not rely on this complaint-driven process,” Brown said, “To try to get at some of the systemic industrywide problems that we're facing.”
Bikini baristas sue over alleged wage theft, sexual harassment
Story published 3/4/2026
Service industry workers often deal with the brunt of Washington's wage theft cases.
Two lawsuits brought by local baristas and the State Attorney General’s Office highlight the vulnerability some workers face, like in this case, alleged sexual harassment and years of missing paychecks.
In 2024, Baristas brought a private class action suit against Alan Tagle. The state Attorney General's office then followed with its own lawsuit against his brother Jonathan Tagle in September. The two run separate strings of bikini barista huts across King and Snohomish Counties.
Barista Stevie Lee Hewitt started working at one of Jonathan Tagle’s bikini coffee huts in late 2022 and says the problems started during the job interview where she was asked to change into what she would wear on a shift.
“The first thing he asks you to do is to just get naked in front of him,” said Stevie Lee Hewitt. “He won't allow you to go to a restroom to change or have any of your own private area. It's something that needs to be done in front of him."
On top of the alleged sexual harassment, Hewitt says workers had no paid sick leave, no vacation time and faced threats of being fired if they called out sick. She estimates she's owed about half her pay from the two years she worked there.
“It feels very pointless. To receive what seems like a fraction of what I should have been getting paid hourly,” Hewitt said. “It's not a niche in the bikini industry to not get paid. It's not unique. It's not unheard of. It's all too common. And so it's almost this thing that it's just how it is.”
Jonathan Tagle didn’t respond to a request for comment. No trial date has been set for that lawsuit.
Alan Tagle’s lawyer sent a statement that said the main plaintiff in the suit only filed after she was terminated after roughly 15 years of employment. And that about a third of baristas that could have joined the class action suit opted out. That trial has been postponed until April.
Allan Tagle’s full statement:
Alan Tagle built and has run Tagle & Partners LLC, which operates a handful of coffee stands in Washington, since 2007. During those 19 years, Tagle & Partners has employed more than 200 women who sought work as “bikini barista” for the company. The Plaintiff in this case, _______, worked for Tagle & Partners as a bikini barista for roughly 15 years, during which time she purchased a home and trained many new baristas. At no time during her employment did _______ file legal claim or lawsuit against Mr. Tagle or Tagle & Partners. ________only filed the current lawsuit, a wage and hour class action, after her termination. Significantly, after receiving notice of the lawsuit, and the opportunity to speak with _________'s attorneys, more than one third of all class members declined to be part of ________'s lawsuit, thereby excluding themselves from the class. This is a high opt-out rate for a class action. _______'s is the first and only lawsuit filed by a barista against Mr. Tagle and Tagle & Partners in the company’s 19-year history; Mr. Tagle looks forward to the opportunity to present evidence and have his day in court.
(Cascade PBS has redacted the name of the plaintiff in the case)
Repay and repeat: WA's weak wage theft deterrent
Story published 3/3/2026
Last year, the Department of Labor and Industries investigated nearly 8,000 worker complaints filed with the agency. In about a third of those, L&I determined workers were owed money.
When that happens, companies get a chance to settle, and pay back wages, plus interest. And most of the time, that's exactly what they do: about three quarters of cases wrap up that way.
“What doesn't happen in those settlements is a requirement that the company pay penalties,” said Liz Ford, assistant law professor at Seattle University.
Ford is a lawyer that oversees Seattle University's Workers’ Rights Clinic, which offers free consultations to low wage workers.
“It means that employers don't get a strong signal that something bad will happen to them if they fail to comply with the law,” Ford said. “The signal that it sends is it that it is not that expensive to violate the law... Then there isn't a strong incentive against breaking the law in the future.”
The job of enforcing wage laws falls almost entirely to agencies like L&I because payouts are often too small to be able to hire a lawyer. Ford says the sheer scale of wage theft pushes agencies like L&I toward clearing cases quickly.
“In order to manage the sort of massive need for enforcement of wage theft, agencies like Labor and Industries are triaging. They're trying to get through cases fast. And when they do that, they're sacrificing deterrence, which makes their job only harder because it means that there might be more cases of wage theft in the future,” Ford said.
A L&I spokesperson told Cascade PBS that the Wage Payment Act waives penalties when an employer pays the worker what they are owed, unless they are a repeat offender. L&I says the law is structured to motivate employers to quickly pay, which acts as a deterrent in the further delay of payment of wages and interest.
