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The definition of "employee" in Washington's minimum wage law is broad - it includes anyone who is permitted to work by an employer, without regard to immigration or legal work status. Even if they were, the company said, it would be unlawfully discriminatory for Washington to require GEO to pay them minimum wage - now $13.69 an hour - when the state doesn't pay minimum wage to inmates who work at its own prisons or other detention facilities. GEO maintained that the detainees were not employees under the Washington Minimum Wage Act. GEO did not respond to a request for comment. He added that if GEO appeals, no money will be distributed until that process is resolved. "Immigrants held in GEO's for-profit facilities are not criminals and should not be beholden to enriching the corporation's bottom line," Berger said in a statement. The award is expected to be divided among 10,000 people who were held at the facility since 2014. The two lawsuits were consolidated for the first phase of a trial, determining whether GEO was obligated to pay minimum wage.Īdam Berger, one of the attorneys representing detainees in the private lawsuit, said he and his colleagues had asked for $13.7 million, but the jury decided the immigrants were owed more.
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GEO may have to pay even more when a judge on Monday considers separate damages sought by state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who had filed another lawsuit on behalf of detainees held since 2005.