Washington’s state Supreme Court has upheld the $15 minimum wage ballot measure that SeaTac voters passed in November 2013. The 5-to-4 decision, announced Aug. 20, overturns an earlier lower court ruling which barred the measure from taking effect within Seattle-Tacoma International Airport itself but let it stand for 1,600 hotel and parking lot workers who work in the surrounding City of SeaTac, population 28,000.
The Supreme Court ruling means immediate and sizable raises for up to 4,700 baggage handlers, food service and retail employees, car rental workers, and others at the airport. Those workers are also now owed back pay dating back to Jan. 1, 2014 — when the measure took effect. The back pay awards could total over $15 million for employers ranging from the airport McDonalds to baggage handling contractor Menzies to the staff at Hertz rental car.
The SeaTac initiative covers airport, hotel, shuttle service, car rental, and institutional food service workers, and it doesn’t just raise their wage. It also mandates 6.5 paid sick days a year, bans bosses from taking workers’ tips; requires employers to offer additional hours to part-time employees before hiring from the outside; and gives employees of contractors the opportunity to keep their jobs when a contract changes hands.
A business coalition led by Alaska Airlines lost the legal fight to keep it off the ballot, lost the campaign to defeat it at the polls, and now has lost the legal challenge, which was based on half a dozen obscure legal technicalities.
The SeaTac ballot measure has had a ripple effect: The campaign led directly to Seattle’s passage of a phased-in $15-an-hour minimum wage. Since then, San Francisco and Los Angeles followed with their own $15-an-hour ordinances.
If businesses balk at the back pay, they’ll likely be taken to court, says Heather Weiner, spokesperson for the SeaTac minimum wage campaign. So far, covered employers outside the airport have complied. And the measure has even had some positives for businesses — fierce competition among applicants, and greater motivation to keep their jobs among employees.
