7 days ago
Olympia council votes 4-3 to send $20 minimum wage, Workers' Bill of Rights to public vote
The Olympia City Council voted 4-3 on July 22 against an initiative to adopt a Workers' Bill of Rights and raise the minimum wage across the city to $20. It unanimously voted to forward the initiative along for the people to vote on in November.
The decision came after several community members provided testimony both for and against the proposal, and nearly a split vote between council members. Mayor Dontae Payne was the deciding vote.
The council voted unanimously in a separate vote to send the initiative to the November ballot. The council will take action on for and against committees for the ballot initiative during its Aug. 4 meeting.
The initiative states workers deserve fair and secure scheduling with advance notice of their work schedules. They also want the opportunity to move into full-time work when available, and to be paid fairly for their work.
The initiative also outlines workers' right to a safe workplace.
If adopted, the minimum wage in Olympia would increase on Jan. 1.
A phase-in period is included for small and medium-sized businesses to adapt to paying higher wages.
Comments from the public
Emily Clouse, a Thurston County commissioner, spoke in favor of the initiative, but not on the behalf of the commission as a whole.
Clouse said she grew up in her parents' coffee stand and car wash business, and she respects how hard small businesses work to make payroll and build community.
She said she knows from her work at the county and as a service provider in Olympia that the people keeping those businesses running are the same people on housing waitlists, in line at the food bank and trying to piece together child care.
'When pay hours and scheduling are unstable, everything in a family's life becomes unstable: housing, health, school and safety,' Clouse said. 'That instability hits hardest for young workers, caregivers, queer and trans workers, immigrants, disabled folks and people coming home from incarceration, exactly the neighbors we say we want to keep rooted here in our community.'
Clouse urged the council to pass the initiative as written and said setting a fair baseline helps good employers who are already doing right by their staff.
Alice Rosewater said she's a local library worker and member of the executive board for the Thurston Lewis Mason Central Labor Council. She supported passing the initiative and said ballot initiatives are rare in the City of Olympia.
Rosewater said the number of signatures needed in order to put an initiative on the ballot is unreasonably high, and much higher per capita than what's required in other cities in Washington.
'Over 5,700 signatures after ballot collection have to be verified, representing nearly 10% of the entire population,' Rosewater said. 'But in spite of this massive hurdle, Olympians have made their voices clear. We demand a higher minimum wage. We demand basic workplace protections in our city.'
Rosewater questioned whether it was democratic to send the initiative to a vote of the people when it gives business lobbyists the chance to pour money into campaigns to sway the public opinion.
Tammie Hetrick, the president and CEO of the Washington Food Industry Association, didn't support the council adopting the initiative Tuesday night. She asked that it be moved to a public vote for further consideration and for the public to learn more about its implications.
Hetrick said she's concerned there will be unintended consequences on the cost of food for grocers and convenience stores that average a 1% profit margin.
'They would not have a choice but to increase food costs to comply with this mandate,' she said.
Mindy Roberts is a staff member at the Union Gospel Mission. She said the morning of July 22, more than 80 men and women woke up on the floor of the mission. Before the end of the morning, the mission had served more than 300 meals.
Roberts said most of their employees make at least $17/hr and are provided meals. She said they have subsidized housing and try to do everything they can to make sure employees are cared for.
She said if the initiative passes, the mission can't afford to pay its workers.
'We won't be able to keep the shelter open, potentially, or we're going to have to stop serving those meals, or we're going to have to talk to the children that are being served and let them know that the kid's club isn't going to be able to be open in September,' Roberts said.
Marisa Wulff, co-owner of the Mud Bay pet store chain, asked the council to forward the initiative to a vote of the people. She said the city needs to find the right balance between great jobs for people and the survival of Olympia's local businesses.
'Our company is owned by our family and we're passionate about being a good employer,' Wulff said. 'We provide schedules three weeks in advance. We provide medical, dental and vision insurance for our full-time employees, a generous staff discount, paid time off and a 401K match. We provide security buttons for employees when they work alone.'
Wulff said during the last few years, the complexities of being in business have increased dramatically because of increased costs.
'We have had to make cutbacks, including reducing store staffing levels by more than 20%,' she said. 'We have 140 fewer employees than we did three years ago with the same number of stores; our employees used to be almost all full time. We've had to shorten shift links and hire part time. Many of our stores now open and close with only one person.'
Wulff said her company is struggling to compete with goliaths like Chewy and Amazon.
'Chewy is shipping products into our communities, but they are not providing jobs for our residents, and we are,' she said.
Comments from the council
The proposal to adopt the initiative without sending it to the public to vote on was supported by council members Clark Gilman, Jim Cooper and Robert Vanderpool.
Gilman said the measure came before the council with more than enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot. He said the council should pass the measure and use time and resources that would be spent on an election campaign instead to meet with employers and workers and conduct a study to address the council's questions.
'One of the questions we've asked often is, who will this measure benefit? And in my world, the working class is not a temporary phase, it's a lifetime of work,' Gilman said. 'Hourly workers in many different industries, workers in different phases of their life, all would benefit from increased pay and scheduling protection, whether the paycheck comes from a boutique or large, locally owned or corporate employer.'
He said the people who would benefit from the Workers' Bill of Rights in the community range from teenagers who have to contribute to the family budget, to many parents with school age children, to elders who must continue to work to pay for their health care concerns and expenses.
'The measure is an important step to leveling the playing field in Olympia and creating a strong Olympia where everybody has a chance to belong and an opportunity to live with dignity,' Gilman said.
Cooper said the Workers' Bill of Rights isn't a vague aspiration, but a clear, community-driven mandate.
'Over 13,000 signatures were submitted, far exceeding the threshold required,' Cooper said. 'That's not just a number. That's thousands of our neighbors, constituents and local workers from around the region telling us they want action now.'
He said the protections laid out in the initiative aren't radical demands, but baseline expectations of a just and moderate economy.
'Studies consistently show that higher minimum wages do not reduce youth employment,' he said. 'In fact, they often lead to better job stability and more predictable hours, things young people need just as much as anyone else. And for nonprofits, fair wages help retain staff, reduce turnover and improve service delivery.'
Cooper said the council often meets to talk about housing affordability, zoning, density and supply, but rarely are wages discussed.
He said 44% of households in Olympia fall under the term asset-limited, income-constrained and employed. He said these are people who often work full time but still can't afford their basic necessities.
'Housing costs in Olympia have risen 55% over the past seven years, while wages have only risen 38%,' Cooper said. 'The gap is not just a statistic. It's a trap. It keeps people stuck in the cycle of rent burden, unable to save, unable to move, unable to build wealth, and when people can't move up, they can't move out.'
Cooper said the city can't solve its housing crisis without addressing wages.
'We cannot build a thriving city on the backs of underpaid workers,' he said. 'We cannot keep deferring decisions that we have the power and the responsibility to make.'
Mayor Dontae Payne said he couldn't be in support of the initiative because there were a number of things he found problematic. He said the initiative isn't written well and he's concerned about the impacts it will have on smaller businesses in Olympia.
He said just last week the council had a study session and posed questions to city staff that the council needed answers to before coming to a decision, yet no answers have been provided.
'They're basic questions: what are the current economic conditions of the City of Olympia? Why are we making this decision, and for whom? How many will it impact? Who will be affected? What are the consequences that we foresee and what are the ones that maybe we're not thinking about?' he said.
Payne said the city hasn't done its homework, and it shouldn't be passing policies without all the answers.
He said Olympia isn't Seattle, and you can't take what's happening there and plot it in a city the size of Olympia.
'Please understand that there will be those who will benefit from this action and there will be those who do not,' he said. 'And it is just not a reality to sit here and say that it's going to be beneficial to the majority of people in this community, because I don't think it will, and so I will not be supporting adopting it as an ordinance to the city tonight.'
Solve the daily Crossword
