Baristas: Bikini-Themed Stand Didn't Pay Us

It wasn't wearing a bikini and being ogled by customers that bothered coffee stand barista Bonnie Walker. In fact, she told KIRO 7, "it was a lot of fun to work there." What bothered Walker while on the job at the Baristas stand in Auburn was not being paid.

"They don’t pay you," she said.

UPDATE (May 20, 2011): Bikini Barista Company Faces New Complaints

Walker said she worked for Baristas for six weeks last year. She got tips, but not payment for the minimum wage hours she worked, she said. So she started calling the company's president, Scott Steciw, every day, and asked, "where’s my paycheck? Aren’t you going to pay me? When are you going to pay me?"

Amy Clancy: "How much did they owe you?" Walker: "About $500, give and take after taxes."

Ashley Hughes said the same thing happened to her, and that Baristas still owes her $350.

She said she, too, repeatedly asked for her money.

"Have you got my check yet? Have you got my check yet?" Hughes said she asked Baristas.

Even when Hughes and Walker received checks, the checks weren't signed. When the women finally did get them signed, then deposited the checks, they said there wasn’t enough money in the Baristas account to cover them.

"It was confirmed that the check was in fact bad," Walker said.

Clancy: "There weren’t enough funds to cover it?" Walker: "No."

"I lost a lot of things" because of not being paid, Hughes said. "I lost my car, my insurance, my cellphone. I could have saved my apartment while working there, paying that off, but I lost all of it."

Clancy: "Because you couldn’t pay your bills?" Hughes: "I couldn’t." Clancy: "Because they weren’t paying you?" Hughes: "No."

The same accusations were repeatedly made by other former Baristas employees in wage complaints filed with the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. Since the beginning of 2009, 16 other women who worked for Baristas have stated that "no one signed (their) checks," and that the checks were "made out on insufficient funds." One worker said she "was fired after demanding (her) paycheck." Many detail in their complaints that they were told by company higher-ups to simply take what was owed them out of the cash register.

Walker confirmed that pay practice.

"Basically, you have to be dishonest," she said. "Reach into the cash drawer, take out the cash, and that's how you get paid."

Hughes said she never felt comfortable with taking cash instead of getting a paycheck.

"It was really sketchy," she said. "You had no idea if they were thinking you were stealing or not."

Elaine Fischer of the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries said encouraging employees to take cash in lieu of a paycheck could mean proper bookkeeping isn't being done, or that money isn't being reported to the IRS, nor deductions made.

"There’s definitely a pattern there," Fischer said. "What we see is that we're not getting much cooperation."

Three of the 16 wage claims filed with L&I were paid by Baristas, also known as Pangea Networks. Two were closed by the state. Two were filed in early 2011 and are still pending. Six former employees dropped their claims so they could sue in small claims court for possibly twice what they were owed.

Two former employees have been issued small claims court judgments in their favors. In December, the company was ordered to pay one former employee more than $600 within 30 days. She said she still has not been paid, and said that she is planning to file in a higher court.

Another employee was awarded more than $1,000 last week.

No one from Baristas showed up in court for either hearing.

In the case of three others, the state ruled the complaints were founded and ordered Baristas pay the wages and thousands of dollars in penalties.

Those rulings and penalties were issued last September, and Fischer said labor and industries has still not heard anything from Baristas in response. But in September, the same month the state was issuing penalties against Baristas/Pangea Networks CEO Barry Henthorn and Scott Steciw for not paying their employees, Baristas was opening coffee stand number six in Kent.

"We don’t think it’s a very good idea to keep expanding your business at the expense of your employees that aren’t getting paid," Fischer said.

"I was taken advantage of," Hughes said. "I needed the money and yes, a lot of people are getting taken advantage of by this company right now."

She said that she believes Henthorn and Steciw are "still not signing checks to this day."

KIRO 7 contacted both Steciw and Henthorn for comment but neither has returned e-mails or phone calls.

According to labor and industries, the number of employees not being paid in Washington State has gone up since the recession from 3,612 in 2008 to 4,393 in 2009 and 4,043 in 2010.

Anyone not being paid for any job should file a labor and industries wage claim here: http://www.lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/ComplainDiscrim/WRComplaint/default.asp