Wa State: Hired As Ic But Given Work Schedule. Experienced Wage Theft + Other Things. Can We Sue?

Location: washington state.

So, my partner recently was hired for employment at a company called "fine line marketing llc" which she said during an interview that she'd be receiving hourly wages + bonuses, and that the pay would be starting at 27 an hour.

Sounds too good to be true, but we figured it's a marketing job so maybe it's cushy. However, after the second interview, they told her that she'd be in sales, and that she'd be doing office work along with work soliciting their product at specific stores (in her case, Lowe's).

She was hired and made to fill out a 1099 as an independent contractor which I thought was strange, but my partner said that some sales jobs make you do that, so I tried to just let it go.

Now, in my opinion I already have two red flags here because they propositioned the job as marketing then later explained it as sales. But again, I try to look on the bright side. She's had no job for months, I've been unable to find work for a year+, and this is a job that says it will be lucrative. I bite my tongue and do my best to get her to her job for her first few days of work.

In these first few days of work, she was told that the job is actually minimum wage and that she'd get a paid bonus structure on top of that. So... another red flag. But then a day later, she comes back and says that it's not even minimum wage plus bonuses. It's one or the other.

At this point I'm definitely leery. She's also told me that they try to enforce physical punishment for things like yawning or stuff dropping off the desk, and the punishment is in the form of jumping jacks and push ups which... again... very very odd. Yawning is a basic human right, yet they want to punish their workers for this? Huh. Strange choice.

Well, again I try to remain positive with her because she needs it to keep on walking forward. In her time at the office, she has been clocking in each day at 7.15am which is mandatory. They have her in the office until around 10am, and then at 11am she is to be at the Lowe's until 6pm. They require her to do this Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and friday. On Saturday, she was to go in for everything but basically 1 hour earlier for the clock in times. Then on Wednesday, she would be required to come in just for her 7.15am to 10am portion of the office work where they do meetings to teach her how to solicite the company product, as well as 1v1 consultations about any sales She's made or not made.

I thought this seemed very odd considering she told me that they don't allow overtime, and yet the hours required to work per this schedule that all of these so called "independent contractors" must align to would, in theory, put her just over 40 hours a week since she receives a 1 hour break.

I questioned her on this, but she was also puzzled and didn't understand it either. So, she asked her manager and he told her that she wasn't supposed to clock in for the 7.15am to 10am portion, which... now I'm getting angry.

I tell her to get this in text, so she texts one of her bosses and asks if she's supposed to NOT clock in for those near 3 hours, and he confirms that she is correct. At this point I'm telling her she needs to get a copy of her contract and she needs to also get confirmation of her clock ins. But she tells me she has 0 access to any of that information, and when she tried to ask the manager directly in charge of her for this info, he responded by firing her. Now, she wasn't able to go to work for a few days due to some stuff we had going on that we needed to take care of, so he blames it on responsibility and accountability.

Angry, I texted him that if he truly believed in that, he'd give her the information we asked for. I did this from her phone and had her approve the messages because she is, at this point, so dejected over this that she doesn't even know how to handle it properly. She feels defeated due to their constant bait and switching.

But I am adamant, and it's because when she got paid, her check only showed part of the time she worked. They did not include any of the time she was clocked in for the office, and when I reached out to another of her bosses on her behalf he confirmed this with a spreadsheet that clearly did not show her being on the "schedule" for Tuesday and Wednesday last week. These are days she only went into the office for the 7.15 to 10am portion because we were dealing with personal things on our end, so they let her skip the actual store portion so we could take care of our stuff.

But, that being said, I am very certain that this is wage theft. I am also very certain after doing research that they are illegally misclassifying her as an independent contractor when she should, in fact, be an employee.

And so, I am wondering what we need to do to cover ourselves here. I am also wondering if we have an actual lawsuit case on our hands, or if this is something we only can bring as a claim to the labor board. We plan to contact the labor board for both our state along with the federal labor board, but I am wondering if we should also be contacting an attorney as well.

We are still waiting back hear about whether they will be giving her the requested pay stubs, a copy of her contract, and a copy of her actual clock ins from the app they had her clocking into (this app does not show her previous clock ins and only shows the same spreadsheet we got that has her hours edited off of it.)

But, what else can we do? And what are your thoughts?

Thank you if you read this, and especially if you have advice. We are at our wit's end here due to stress levels being insanely high because along with this stuff, we also have an eviction notice and we've been unable to get rental aid, so we were kind of hoping this job would save our bacon.