Posted on 03/04/2014 5:26:07 AM PST by iowamark
If you haven’t heard, the city of SeaTac, Washington (a city of roughly 27,000) is jacking up its minimum wage to $15 an hour. It was the result of a union-funded campaign and, as forewarning to employers, if it hasn’t already, it is something that is likely coming to a city near you.
As unions have found it difficult to unionize more employers the traditional way, they have turned to alternative strategies, including Worker Centers and the fight to increase the minimum wage.
In November 2013, the minimum wage measure was initially passed by SeatTac voters. However, after it was challenged by Alaska Airlines, it was voted on again and when all the votes were counted, it won by only 77 votes.
Nevertheless, as a battle ensues in court delaying its implementation, a salient point is stated in this National Law Review post by attorney Byron P. O’Connor.
It is a point that employers in other cities should make note of:
….Garnering national media attention, the new SeaTac, Washington, ordinance imposing a $15 minimum wage presents unions’ new blueprint to unionize non-union employers or, at least, to increase their costs of doing business, which benefits other, unionized, employers.
After the most expensive per-vote-earned election in Washington history and a hand recount, SeaTac voters approved Proposition One by 77 votes (50.6 per- cent to 49.4 percent) in 2013. Labor unions, including Unite Here, Service Employees International Union and the Teamsters, initiated and financially supported the ordinance. The union-led campaign raised more than $1.4 million; the business-led opponents raised less than half that amount. The ordinance took effect on January 1, 2014, and has been subject to legal challenge ever since.
The ordinance mandates a $15-per-hour minimum for workers at SeaTac International Airport and airport-related businesses outside of the airport (including hotels with more than 100 rooms, airline service contractors and rental car companies). Additionally, it requires that businesses provide 6.5 days of paid sick leave a year to full-time employees, that businesses offer additional hours to part-time employees before hiring more workers, that tips and service charges be allocated only to certain employees, and that successor employers retain the predecessor’s employees for at least 90 days after an ownership change (this is to limit the new employer’s ability to set initial terms and conditions of employment following a purchase or an owner- ship change). [Emphasis added.]
Unions, by their structure, have full-time lobbyists and campaign organizers who are employed to facilitate unions’ agendas. The vast number of employers—especially small businesses who are most affected by measures that unions push—do not have the same capacity to match union funds or personnel.
However, they can become more educated as to what is happening at the local, state and national levels.
Today, employers are constantly being demonized by unions, the Left establishment, as well as the Obama administration. Until employers become more engaged in local, state and national politics, unions will continue to attack their ability to create jobs at all levels.
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Truer words never spoken.
The whole city is only a couple miles across. Anybody want to bet businesses of the type affected will relocate across the border?
Airport concession businesses will just raise their prices and exploit the captive market even more. Which doesn’t make them out of the ordinary for airports.
Are the Administration and Unions trying to shift subsidies onto the private sector?
The constant push for higher minimum wages, as high as $15, would shift the burden of subsidizing low income and low information people to the private sector.
Government will be praised as heroes while (un) intended consequences would make life worse for those poor subjects who will follow like lemmings down the proverbial cliff.
What they will encounter is to lose eligibility for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and other State and federal programs, leaving them worse off than before. Because of their newly found “wealth”, they would be classified as the “new middle class” courtesies of their compassionate Administration. All the while the federal coffers would increase because of cost savings.
The evil Corporations would be blamed for causing this problem for not paying for extra subsistence.
I don’t believe that that calculation has not already been made by the Agencies?
This is only my personal opinion and I could be wrong.
You mentioned a lot of consequences. One you didn’t mention was wage-push driven inflation. Raising the minimum wage to $15 nearly doubles the minimum wage. Other wages higher on the scale will also get boosted, and will be folded into product costs.
“Airport concession businesses will just raise their prices and exploit the captive market even more. Which doesn’t make them out of the ordinary for airports.”
From an earlier post on this subject, it was pointed out that the SEA-TAC Airport, though it is in the town of Seatac, is the property of the City of Seattle and therefore not subject to the minimum wage law of the town.
How about the concessionaires and sub-contractors at the airport?
I thought (although it seems odd) that SeaTac airport wasn’t actually in the geographic limits of SeaTac and wasn’t covered by this law?
As I understand it, the airport is within city limits but operated by the Port of Seattle, which may affect whether it is covered under these new laws. Or not.
Can’t they sponsor a countermeasure to undo this one? Then do it again and again?
This is democracy folks. It ends in tyranny.
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