Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

Re: poor work environment, late paycheck, no OT pay...

For the long term, I hope you are keeping your eyes open for a new job elsewhere.

For the short term, your best choice is probably to go to the Department of Labor and Industries. Under a new law passed in 2006, they will follow up for you on wage and hours issues. So they will definitely pursue the overtime claim (I encourage you to keep careful records) and also the late payment claim. Whether they will follow up on the working environment might depends on where you work. (If you work in a warehouse throwing green salted hides, rats and cockroaches are probably a fact of life. If you work in an office, they shouldn't be.)

Go to the following link for more information about how to report a safety violation (rats and cockroaches) to Dept of L & I: http://www.lni.wa.gov/forms/wordforms/418052af.doc

Go to the following link for more information about how to report the late paychecks and refused OT pay to L & I: http://www.lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/Wages/WagePayAct/default.asp

You can also hire an attorney to help you with this, but since the state has a mechanism in place to pursue this at no cost to you, you may want to try that first.

Good luck!