What may have been the most important vote taken during my 12 years as a Seattle City Councilmember was when the council passed the $15 minimum wage in 2014. It was the first $15 minimum of any major city in the United States.
It wasn’t an easy vote to take. There were those who strongly favored the $15 minimum and those just as staunchly opposed. The devil, as with most controversial votes, was in the details.
For openers there was a march in favor of the $15 minimum wage led by labor and liberal activists. Marchers arrived at City Hall and took over the plaza with bullhorns calling on Seattle to approve $15 minimum wage. Prior to that march, the small city of Sea-Tac (where the march had originated) had gained national attention as the first to vote for a $15 minimum wage.
In response, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, appointed a 24-member task force. To achieve broad representation, he appointed labor leaders and representatives of both small and large business. He also included Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant, the Council’s sole socialist member and a vocal supporter of “$15 Now.”
The mayor set the task force to work with a deadline of May 1, International Workers’ Day. When members seemingly reached an impasse, he locked them into a room at City Hall. He sent in food. And, when they again stalled, Murray entered the room and yelled. Finally, with hours to spare, they reached agreement with only two task force members dissenting. Voting “no” for very different reasons were Chamber of Commerce President Maud Daudon and Councilmember Sawant.
The task force majority had reached and approved a compromise agreement. Sometimes called “the grand bargain,” it called for a slow start and allowed an even slower phase-in for small businesses (those with less than 500 employees.) Most observers credit the final positive outcome to Mayor Murray and to labor leader David Rolf of SEIU 775. Helping speed agreement was general knowledge that Rolf had an initiative ready to gather voters’ signatures should the task force fail.
However, the task force outcome wasn’t the end of the debate. In Seattle, a mayor can’t pass a minimum wage for the city any more than he can pass a budget. That is the job of an elected city council. In 2014, the city’s nine councilmembers were all elected citywide. It fell to those nine of us (including me and Bruce Harrell) to act on a minimum wage proposal.
Council President Sally Clark chaired the hot-potato issue, scheduling informational meetings and a public open house. I recall the open house held at the Northgate Community Center. There were fiery advocates but also many naysayers from the hospitality and restaurant community. The restaurateurs and bar owners wanted a lower than minimum training wage and credit for tips and certain benefits. They believed gratuities should count as part of an employee’s hourly wage.
Several leading restaurateurs insisted that they’d be put out of business if they had to pay the higher minimum. There were even a couple of servers who insisted they made more in tips than they’d gain through a minimum wage.
We listened to all who signed up to speak. After follow-up meetings with local leaders and economists, the Council was ready to come to a decision. Meeting in Council chambers at a standing-room-only meeting on May 14, 2014, councilmembers voted to approve the task force’s plan. That plan – an agreed-upon compromise — provided for a 3-year phase-in period and allowed businesses with less than 500 employees even more time to comply.
The council vote was unanimous. The “yes” vote was cast by Sawant, despite her task force “no” vote. However, in her usual take-no-prisoners style, she loudly condemned the council for the slow phase-in and for allowing a tip credit. She demanded that the City of Seattle immediately begin paying its employees the $15 minimum, rather than delay during the years-long start-up.
Included in the approved measure was creation of an Office of Labor Standards charged with monitoring what businesses would be paying. Legislation also called for a yearly adjustment in the hourly wage. While the minimum wage would start at $15, that would rise annually based on inflation. Seattle’s minimum now stands at $19.97 an hour for businesses with 500 or more employees; $17.25 for those with fewer. By contrast the federal minimum wage still lags woefully behind at $7.25. The State of Washington’s minimum currently is $16.28 an hour.
Although it has been ten years coming, time now is up for small businesses (less than 500 workers) to comply. Under the city’s original legislation, small businesses will be required to pay the minimum wage, starting on Jan. 1, 2025. No longer will they be able to count tips and health benefits in the hourly wage.
Restaurateurs, finally aware they’re facing a deadline, are protesting that, unless given more time, they will have few choices. They say they’ll have to raise menu prices sky high or be forced to close their doors. The restaurant business has long been known for operating on slim profit margins. Often these eateries are only an outstanding month or two away from closing.
The city’s handful of large restaurant operations (500 plus employees) have already faced that cliff. To remain open, they have indeed steeply raised menu prices. They’ve also resorted to tacking on a service charges to each restaurant bill.
Given the state of panic over realization that the Jan 1 deadline is coming, the City Council and mayor’s office are already feeling pressure to extend the minimum wage deadline or to continue a two-tier system permanently. Restaurant owners argue that they’ve have had a rough time; they’ve faced pandemic years that rocked the industry, as well as months of delayed recovery. On the other hand, labor interests are convinced that it’s high time for the city to honor the original agreement.
The question now is: How will the relatively neophyte members of the City Council respond? Already councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents many small businesses on Capitol Hill, has drafted a bill that would keep the two-tier system in place. Where others will stand is problematic since at least two councilmembers — Council President Sara Nelson and Councilmember Tanya Woo, both of whom have restaurant connections – likely won’t be able to vote, owing to conflicts of interest. That leaves Councilmembers Dan Strauss, Tammy Morales, Rob Saka, Maritza Rivera, and Bob Kettle to determine the outcome.
Mayor Bruce Harrell, who served on the council when the minimum wage “grand bargain” was approved, hasn’t taken a firm stand. He released an anodyne statement saying, “Seattle has one of the nation’s highest minimum wages – a clear commitment to creating a city where working people can live and thrive. We continue to advance policies that support working people and ensure Seattle remains a bastion for workers’ rights.”
Whatever emerges from the controversy, it is certain that this will be a defining issue in the future. Those like Mayor Harrell who face an election next year will be put to the test: Are you ready to agree with labor that restaurateurs have had ample time to prepare; or will you take a vote favoring the small businesses who daily cope with high rents and prices in this city?
Thanks very much for the historical recap, Jean. Much appreciated.
Geez if a Business model isn’t strong enough to allow the owner to pay a living wage then maybe the profit margin is too high? They had 10 years to get ready, no more veiled threats, time to follow the law.
People gotta eat. Something will happen.
I’m with the small businesses on this one. Restaurant prices are so high that only the upper classes can afford to eat out on a regular basis. What makes a city a city is the public spaces and interactions with people who may not yet know each other. No better place to foster cosmopolitan community than restaurants and bars. When an appetizer starts at $12 and a drink starts at $12 many people are locked out of participating in the Third Places that form the bedrock of urban life. With tax and tip the smallest item in the menu and a drink is $30. In 2019 I could get dinner for that.
I’ve talked to many small restaurant owners, and they tell me they are making less now, with price increases, than they were five years ago. Between food and supplies inflation and wage inflation many restaurants are on the brink of going out of business.
Not every job is meant to be enough to support a family and a kid’s college education. Why should someone make nearly $40k per year for making coffee, or ringing up food without doing much more? To exclude tips and benefits (have you looked at the cost of providing health insurance??) from compensation is madness.
What utter elitist rubbish this is, every word of it. Your “cosmopolitan community” and “bedrock of urban life” are based on keeping people in poverty so that you can enjoy dining out in style. Who the hell can live in Seattle on $40K anymore?
They had 10 years to adjust. Let them all go belly up if they can’t, or won’t. And can we please find a candidate to run against, and beat, the odious Sara Nelson?
I’m not sure why the word cosmopolitan has triggered class warfare here. A cosmopolitan city is one where people from various parts of the world live, with different languages, cultures and customs: citizens of the world. What exactly is the least about that.
Better in your view it seems if only the wealthy eat out. Most people who are making ordinary wages will never be going to restaurants in this new future of ever escalating minimum wage. Post pandemic a simple stirfry in a mini mall starts at $15 and with tip and tax it’s $20 and the portion is half what it was before pandemic. “Going out for coffee” which used to mean good coffee and some kind of pastry in 2018 for six dollars is routinely $10 $12 in most neighborhoods I have been to. Once the minimum wage goes up again I’m sure it will go up another several dollars. So there went coffee with neighbors in a public place. Perhaps the bright side is people with family and stretched incomes will return to spending most of their time in their houses just like they did during pandemic. That’s a model for a suburb not a city.
I worked minimum wage for 13 years at all kinds of unfulfilling and terrible jobs, and a few that were wonderful. I never thought those jobs were meant to be a permanent way of life. When I was young, I was also a terrible employee and learning on the job. These days a smart employer would never hire me if I was 18, they would hire the 30 year-old who had experience and was more mature. So the high wages keep the young out of the job market and keep them from learning important skills about how to work and deal with people. I am very grateful for the lessons I had and deal with those jobs. And I moved on and up the wage ladder.
Your definition of a “city” presupposes, and requires, a permanent underclass, of people who cannot afford to live anywhere near where they have to work just to stay alive. Your entire argument reeks of privilege. It is the same argument I have heard, for as long as I have been alive, to keep working people down so that the better-off might profit at their expense. In short, it is the Donald Trump/Project 2025 argument, exactly the same one, and no amount of rationalization, no sugar-coating, will change that.
Oh no no no. Let’s not start pointing fingers and triangulating people. She is merely saying it isnt fair that inflationary prices lock the poor from eating out too. I also think we need to get creative. The whole problem is that costs are high for restaurants; maybe there is another way to ease the burden or support small business while also upholding wages – tax breaks, new revenue streams etc… It is true that there are very few cheap-eat options for the very people that make the food!
I keep wondering if there isn’t some win-win scenario for all in which the wage stays on schedule and on par with large restaurants, which has been the plan all along. Repeal the soda tax, reduce B&O or local sales tax are some initial ideas that come to mind.
I see that Hollingsworth will introduce some legislation simply keeping the 2024 status quo. I wish Council had taken this up earlier and that previous city leaders had not heaped the whole burden of livable wage on the businesses of our region. Inflation stings.
I’d like to see a day where the city government leaders devoted themselves to running the city, not trying to micromanage all the businesses.