The Washington Technology Industry Association has sued the state’s Department of Labor & Industries over what it claims was nonpayment of federal grant funds earmarked for non-traditional apprenticeships.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in King County Superior Court, claims that the state failed to reimburse WTIA’s Workforce Institute for technology apprenticeship development and management it provided under the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) grant.
The WTIA, a business association and advocacy group with more than 1,000 tech company members, is seeking an award of $563,855 plus attorneys fees and any other damages the court considers appropriate.
“We are disappointed that the Department has failed to pay agreed-upon fees owed to the organization for its work in placing underrepresented persons of color, women, veterans, and disabled citizens in tech apprenticeships,” WTIA CEO Michael Schutzler said in a statement to GeekWire. “We have acted in good faith, delivered remarkable results, and yet are forced into taking formal legal action.”
Matthew Erlich, a spokesperson for L&I, said WTIA is not owed any additional money.
“We agree that the WTIA Workforce Institute has had some success training underserved communities in the high-tech field,” Erlich wrote in an email to GeekWire. “However, we disagree that there’s additional money owed under the agreement.”
“L&I must be a good steward of the public’s funds to ensure benefits come to Washington state. We’re still hopeful that we can work with WTIA to resolve this issue,” he concluded.
According to the 31-page lawsuit, the dispute ranged for a year regarding payments for apprenticeship training, some of it within WTIA’s Apprenti Program.
An initiative of the WTIA’s Workforce Institute, the Apprenti program launched in 2016 and has placed hundreds of apprentices at tech companies in Washington state as well as in Oregon and Virginia. A majority of placements are women, veterans, or people of color.
Some of the money for Apprenti comes from corporate donations from companies such as Microsoft and J.P. Morgan Chase. Much of the funds come from large grants from the U.S. Department of Labor and Washington state Department of Labor & Industries. The WTIA puts people in internships and is then reimbursed after they are placed at tech companies.
But in a series of communications over the past 12 months between L&I and WTIA, it became clear that the two parties didn’t see eye-to-eye on what costs should be covered, according to the court documents. In the lawsuit, WTIA attorneys asserted that L&I’s “persistent lack of communication (and) nonresponsiveness” led to both delayed and withheld payments.
In a statement emailed to GeekWire, Schutzler said a lawsuit was the last resort to get what the WTIA is owed. “At this time, we have unfortunately exhausted all reasonable and prescribed remedies that allow for direct and efficient resolution of the dispute.”
Read the lawsuit in full below:
