Worker's Bill of Rights, $20 minimum wage in Tacoma? Union begins gathering signatures

Yahoo

11-03-2025

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union 367 chapter, with support of the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America, is working to put a $20 minimum wage on the city ballot in November.
According to two initiatives filed with the city of Tacoma last month, activists want to establish a Worker's Bill of Rights, which would raise the minimum wage in Tacoma, give workers more rights to fair scheduling and full-time hours, and improve workplace safety. Medium and small businesses would be phased into the $20 an hour minimum wage requirement over several years.
Andrea Reay, who spoke on behalf of the Tacoma Pierce County Chamber of Commerce as its president and CEO, told The News Tribune on Monday raising the minimum wage in Tacoma would negatively impact small businesses and increase costs for consumers. She also voiced support for businesses to offer flexible hours and advocated for more creative solutions to address issues like affordable housing, economic inequality and workforce education.
To get on the ballot, Worker's Bill of Rights advocates need to gather signatures from at least 10% of people who cast votes in the last election cycle. UFCW 367 community and labor organizer Colton Rose told The News Tribune on Friday they would have to gather about 5,000 signatures in favor of the initiative. Their goal is gathering at least 8,000 signatures by early July, he said.
Rose said UFCW 367 is also pushing for a similar Worker's Bill of Rights in Olympia and would need to gather at least 15,000 signatures there by early July to put it on the ballot.
The initiatives come on the heels of a citizen's petition to establish a Tenant Bill of Rights, which successfully passed in Tacoma in 2023 on a razor-thin margin.
As of Jan. 1, 2020, employers in Tacoma are required to use the Washington state minimum wage. As of the first of this year the state's minimum wage was $16.66 an hour, 38 cents higher than 2024. Workers who are 14 or 15 years old must be paid at least $14.16 an hour.
If successfully put on the ballot and approved by voters, the Tacoma initiatives would be enforced by private right of action, although there is language that would allow the city to vote on and develop its own enforcement mechanism.
Two versions of a Worker's Bill of Rights have been submitted to the city of Tacoma. They are similar, but Version 2 has stronger penalties for violations and stronger language protecting workers' rights to fair scheduling and hours. Rose said UFCW 367 is testing public and business sentiment to determine which version it would push to get on the ballot.
UFCW 367 wants the city of Tacoma to establish a higher minimum wage than the rest of the state. Upon the effective date, every employer in the city that employs more than 500 employees in its network would have to pay each employee at least $20 an hour, according to the initiatives.
'On January 1 of the next calendar year, and each January 1 thereafter, the hourly minimum wage must increase by the annual rate of inflation to maintain employee purchasing power,' the initiative says.
Starting on its effective date, all employers in Tacoma that employ between 16 and 500 employees must pay their employees an hourly minimum wage of at least $18 an hour, and, 'The two-dollar reduction must decrease annually by one dollar on January 1 of each year thereafter until the reduction is zero,' according to the initiative.
Employers that have 15 or fewer employees must pay their employees at least $17 an hour beginning on the effective date, and, 'The three-dollar reduction must decrease annually by 50 cents on January 1 of each year thereafter until the reduction is zero,' the initiatives say.
Under the Worker's Bill of Rights, certain employers would need to give employees 'a good faith estimate' of their work schedules, give at least 14 calendar days notice of their work schedules, offer additional hours of work to existing employees before hiring additional employees or subcontractors, provide employees with written notice of their rights and provide a written response for why they denied a worker's request to a change in their schedule due to a major life event.
Employers also would need to create a workplace safety plan to protect workers and consumers in the event of violence or natural disaster, according to the initiatives. Large employers would be required to protect workers in isolated or dangerous areas by providing panic buttons and maintaining safe staffing levels.
Failure to provide a good faith estimate of work schedules could result in $500 penalties to the employer per failure, as could a failure to offer additional hours of work to existing employees, according to one initiative. A failure to provide employees with written notice of their rights could result in a $500 penalty and retaliation could result in $1,000 to $5,000 penalties to the employer.
UFCW 367 president Michael Hines told The News Tribune on Thursday the union was one of the first to endorse the Tenant Bill of Rights in Tacoma and came up with the idea for the Worker's Bill of Rights after running into challenges with reduced hours and safety issues in area grocery stores.
'That was sort of the background of why we started thinking about, well, if they're not going to talk to us at the table, then we'll legislate it,' Hines said. 'We see ourselves as not just a labor union but part of the greater community, so we have a responsibility to raise the standards for all working class, not just those that belong to our union.'
Hines said many of the union's 8,000 members are struggling to make ends meet, and some are living in their cars because they cannot keep up with the rising costs of rent and cost of living in Western Washington.
'Some people think that by raising the minimum wage, then the cost of everything is going to go up, but the truth of the matter is, we're chasing the cost of living. We're not ahead of it. We haven't been ahead of it in a long time,' he said. 'There's also those, like me, who have been around a long time. I remember working for $3.35 an hour as minimum wage. And so some people are like, 'Well, I had to work my way up. Why should some 19-year-old kid make 20 bucks an hour when it took me all these years to make that?' And the truth is, we're in different times.'
Rose said the union doesn't want to burden small businesses, which is why it would phase in minimum wage increases.
'Cities around Washington, around the Puget Sound, for years now, have been raising the minimum wage, and we can see the direct impact. And that is when low-wage workers have more money to spend, they spend that money in their community,' he said. 'Workers who get the increased wages will directly benefit from being able to afford their rent and buy groceries and all the things that we need to do to live on a daily basis, and the community as a whole will thrive because of the increased support for local and small businesses.'
Rikki Wood, the communications chair of Tacoma DSA, said their organization 'fully supports' the Worker's Bill of Rights and said wages should increase with the profit margins of their businesses.
'Corporate America's profits continue to skyrocket, while increases in pay have flatlined,' she said. 'In partnerships with unions pursuing collective bargaining, we believe in fighting for a living wage for the people in Tacoma.'
In 2024 corporate profits in the United States saw a 16.9% growth in the last year, while wages and salaries in the same period increased 3.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Although Reay agreed that when lower-wage workers have more money to spend it strengthens the local economy, she said, 'the tough piece is that dollar will not go as far as we hope or we think it will because of the increased burden of the increased cost' businesses will push on consumers in order to recoup their labor costs.
Of the more than 1,500 members belonging to the nonprofit Tacoma Pierce County Chamber, more than 85% are small business owners with 20 or fewer employees, Reay said. The initiatives are being proposed at a time when inflation is high and the United States is facing economic insecurity that is putting immense pressure on small businesses, she said. The U.S. Small Business Administration defines a small business as having fewer than 500 employees.
If the Worker's Bill of Rights passes, Reay said, small businesses would be more affected than larger businesses 'because they have less financial flexibility to absorb what those higher labor costs can and could be … simply because of the economy of scale.'
Depending on the industry, some business sectors have lower profit margins than others, like full-service restaurants, Reay said. Small businesses with thin margins are more likely to suffer from minimum-wage increases because 'the cost of everything is going up,' and 'there is a price cap [for what] the general public will tolerate for spending,' she said.
Reay cited a 2021 University of Washington study that examined whether Seattle's phasing in of a $13 minimum wage from 2014 to 2017 lowered income inequality in the city. The study found that the lowest-wage workers in Seattle saw increases in hourly wages, but there was no evidence to suggest the higher minimum wage lowered overall levels of earning inequality for all workers in the city. Income inequality 'substantially increased' in that time period, 'likely for reasons unrelated to the minimum wage law,' and businesses reduced worker hours as a result of increased labor costs, wrote author Mark Long.
'The minimum wage was never meant to be a family wage or a living wage job. It's meant to be a training wage,' Reay said. 'When we're looking at how do we create more opportunities for equitable economic development, how do we create opportunities for workers to have more access to higher wage employment and skilled labor — those are more complex conversations. We are not going to create more economic opportunity and decrease the number of people living in poverty, or below the poverty line, simply by just increasing the minimum wage.'
Reay said the chamber is advocating to look at 'what we're doing for workers holistically' through training and skills programs, investment in child care programs, investing in industries like manufacturing that have a higher earning potential with lower barriers to entry, in addition to building more types of housing and affordable housing.
'It's not as simple as just raising the minimum wage,' she said. 'It's more complex, and it requires more new policy and smart policy solutions. And I would say it's a comprehensive approach.'
When asked about the chamber's stance on the scheduling and hiring conditions outlined in the Worker's Bill of Rights initiatives, Reay said flexible scheduling for hourly employees can be good for both workers and employers.
Reay said she understands workers' desire for a predictable work schedule but said anecdotally that most employers people want to work with 'ensure that they have a schedule that works for them and for their needs, for their families.'
When asked her opinion on the safety protections for workers outlined in the initiatives, Reay said, 'If the problem that we're trying to solve is that there is data on businesses that are taking advantage of workers or not creating safe environments, etc., then, let's solve that problem.'
'Businesses absolutely want to be part of the solution finding, and we want to find a solution that works for business and for workers,' she said. 'We don't want to have unintended consequences.'