Where do you turn when you are in a low wage job and the boss just refuses to pay you? That's the problem some day laborers in Seattle are facing.

Otilio Isidoro thought he had a good job working for a gardening and stone work company. But, when it came time to get paid everything he was due, he kept getting the runaround. "He'd always say just wait a little bit. I don't have the money right now, just wait," Isidoro said, speaking through an interpreter.

But, he says, his boss never came up with the $2,000 he owed Isidoro, who is now pursuing the matter in court.

Hilary Stern, who heads up Casa Latina, a group in Seattle helping immigrant and day laborers, says Isidoro's case is all too familiar. She calls it wage theft.

She says Casa Latina receives calls from "hundreds of workers a year" who've experienced the most obvious type of wage theft--not getting paid at all for their work. She says other calls are from workers who have been paid, but below the minimum wage.

These things are against the law, but Stern says pursuing them takes time and money. On top of that, she believes the plight of low wage workers isn't always a high priority in Olympia.

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