There is no such thing as the “Seattle Fair Wage Act.” There is no such thing as a “WA Min Wage Fee.” And yet so-called “minimum wage surcharges” with misleading names like this are showing up on receipts across the state.
We can bring this practice to an end — with your support. We recently sent a letter to the state Department of Labor & Industries asking them to use their authority to make these misleading surcharges a thing of the past. More than 1,300 people have already added their names & their comments to back us up. If you haven’t signed on yet, you can do it here:
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In our letter, we’re asking L&I to clarify that:
- Service charges can never pose as taxes or government-mandated fees.
- Any surcharges that include the word “wage” or similar language are forbidden, because they will invariably be interpreted as intended to count towards employees’ wages, and that would be illegal under state law.
- Workers must be made whole for service charges which inappropriately were counted towards wage obligations, as this is effectively wage theft.
Taken together, these three rules would effectively eliminate misleading minimum wage surcharges.
And that’s the way it should be, because paying the minimum wage is a basic cost of doing business, not an extra add-on to be counted separately. If there’s no line item for the rent and no napkin-laundering charge called out, then there’s no good reason to tack on an extra few percent and attribute it to the minimum wage. It just might violate state law too, which clearly states that this kind of charge cannot be counted towards an employee’s wage.
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After you add your name, we’ll deliver your signatures to L&I — and we’ll let you know how they respond.
Thanks — let’s do this!
— Working Washington
P.S. You can read our complete letter to L&I here.
Be a Seed for Change 
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