Comments

1
Great reporting.

Hugely dispiriting that the Mayor's committee came to a resolution with members actually secretly resolving to get their own way sometime at a later point.

I guess they never actually got anything done in the first place.
2
Being totally honest:

The actions of Mayor Murray and the City Council may be totally irrelevant now. We're voting on this. I would be astonished if two competing ballot measures aren't on my November ballot, for a $15/now charter amendment option and some sort of graduated legislative option.
3
The mayor has to represent everybody, which means that he has to try to pull this compromise together in the face of competing interests who are trying to pull it apart. That's HIS role. OUR role is to cut through all this bullshit and pass the 15Now charter amendment.

If the cheap-labor conservatives in the Restaurant Association think they can trump that with a statewide initiative that would institutionalize wage slavery, I say bring it on, motherfuckers.
4
Sigh. Mayor Muck-up.
5
that is so gay...
6
What is the pro-business endgame here? Dueling referendums, and then dumping a few tens of millions into an advertising campaign?
7
Why would I hire a high school dropout with a criminal record from Seattle, when at $15 an hour I'll have 50 keen college grads from Bellevue pounding on my door for that job?

Riddle me that morons.
8
Labor needs to get behind the $15 Now initiative if they want to be taken seriously. The David Rolf "hey let's be buddies with Ed Murray" approach was never going to work and has been proven a failure. Murray only responds to power, not to being obsequious.
9
@8: It is so tiresome to have to listen to the whining from the McGinn diehards. Get a clue, will you? your guy LOST. Anybody who thinks McGinn would have done any better than Murray has done with this wage issue is either on crack or just plain fucking retarded.
10
@7 Exactly!

All the keen college graduates totally want to flip burgers or wait tables for a living, with that fast track career path to restaurant management, or maybe even franchise owner.

No one gets philosophy, engineering or finance degrees because they're interested in those fields, they're all just after that sweet, sweet minimum wage loot.

At the same time, people who genuinely love restaurant work can in no way compete.
11
@9 Who said anything about McGinn? @8 was talking about Murray.
12
@2 without SEIU 's support 15Now is going to have a heck of a time gathering the 50k signatures they need. Have you thought of volunteering to help collect signatures?
13
Announcing you have a deal and then unilaterally changing the deal is about as clear a "fuck you" as you'll ever see. So fuck Ed Murray. He jumped on this bandwagon because he thought he could score political points with no intention of putting anything on the line. He's a weasel who gave away everything in Olympia and now he's here to give away everything in Seattle.

We don't need him.
14
Mayday!
15
Has this thing ever been raveled?
16
@8:

Much of local labor is already solidly behind $15Now, but most of the KCLC affiliates are also quite pragmatic when it comes to bridging the labor-management chasm, and we understand that compromise is part of that process. We tried it Murray's way, but it seems pretty clear from his subsequent maneuverings that he's chosen to go all-in with the Chamber, WRA, and other business interests, and is willing to to throw Progressives under the proverbial bus. That's not compromise, that's as Brother Freiboth so succinctly put it, "getting played", and labor does NOT enjoy getting played, particularly when we've sincerely tried to play nice.
17
There are two kinds of people: Those who make money for others and those who have others making money for them. Having others make money for you is a privilege. Being paid a living wage is a RIGHT.

If you can’t pay those making you money a living wage then go back to making money for someone else. Harsh but true. Accept you lost and get out of the way. Someone else will find a way to provide your product or service AND pay a living wage.

TL;DR: Screw that phase-in bullshit altogether. I hope this fails so we can put the vote before the people for $15 Now.
18
@17,

Show me the part of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any law that says everyone has a "RIGHT" to a living wage.

The word "RIGHT" doesn't mean what you think it does.
19
So Ed Murray has revealed himself to be Darth Vader. "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."
20
@18
Show me the part of the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any law that says everyone has a "RIGHT" to a living wage.


Being pedantic, if the $15/now people get it into the City Charter (which they do have a right to do) then, yes, a living wage may just be a right, in the City of Seattle.
21

I want people to get more spending power, but I'm not sure if the minimum wage does that.

I would guess that giving everyone at that level a raise will simply raise the price of the rent, and thus it will all go into the landlords pocket.

At the same time, the basic cost of everything from butter to subway sandwiches -- the things the average Joe buys -- will go up.

The bureaucrats will get more revenue, because it is basically a kind of tax on the middle class.

A more fair way to do things is to raise the property tax. This can have the salubrious effect of not only fairly generating revenue, but lowering the prices of housing for the many who crave it.

In fact, the best tax would be a progressive property tax. Anything above 2400 sq. ft that is a primary residence, and the rate goes up...way up. Anything that is not a primary residence, and is not a rental, as well.
22
@10 fast food jobs make up less than 20% of minimum wage jobs and if you've never met a college student working in a restaurant, then you need to get out more.

So sorry all those college students from Bellevue going to take jobs from your Seattle high school dropouts and criminals. Why pay a fuckup $15 and hour when I'll have well educated young college grads lined up for a good paying job?
23
Murray is not accustomed to having the voters be so aware of his words and actions and hold him accountable for them in real time.

In Olympia, he was free to cut deals with lobbyists, out of sight and out of mind of his district.

It's not so easy to hide what you're doing when you are minutes and blocks away from the voters instead of hours and miles.
24
"There are two kinds of people: Those who make money for others and those who have others making money for them. "

Ummm, I make money for myself, thank you very much. You may need diapers, I don't.
25
@21

Your comment seems a desperate plea for remedial education in economics.
26
@18

...or a right to a bank, a stock market, venture capital...hell, capitalism.

...or a standing army, foreign occupations, undeclared wars.

...or federal housing loans, education loans.

...or GI Bills, VA, veterans benefits.

...or education, healthcare, retirement.

...or air, food, water, clothing, shelter.

...not even a cradle or a grave.

We created branches of government to interpret and apply the constitution because, well, writing one that covers every possible scenario and circumstance in the manner that you apparently imagine would have taken miles of paper, tons of ink and one helluva psychic.
27
@7,

Well, I guess the fuck-ups will have to get jobs in Bellevue.
28
Where are the $15Now people? I want to sign to get it on the ballot.
29
Corporations and business owners can afford to lobby

People making minimum wage can't
30
@28
I signed at the U District Street Fair last Saturday. If you don't find someone in the next few days, I bet they will be at Folklife.
31
@22 Is it that you can't remember or scroll up to see that it was "keen college grads" that you wrote back @7, or do you imagine that SLOGers in general have that problem?

So, what institute of higher learning in Bellevue should fill us with dread with their descending hordes of "keen" students out to take all our minimum wage jobs? Evergreen Beauty & Barber College Bellevue? DeVry? City University of Seattle? Bellevue College?
32
@28 we'll be at folklife, but you can contact us at 15now.org
33
@17 - In other words, nobody that can not provide $15(actually $20)/hr worth of value to an employer does not have the "privilege" of being employed.

The other issue is that a business that today can and does pay a living wage can't if all the businesses around them go out of business. It isn't as simply as just making a villain of one business owner that you think isn't effective at running a business.

I urge people to read the study where it details who is working for under $15/hr in this city.
34
$15 NOW's current initiative has a waiver for total comp for Local Unite 18, a hospitality union for a multi national mega companies like Hyatt, & Mariott, but they say Tom Douglass pays "slave wages" for offering a similiar total comp package at the same 20hr requirement. If those goes to the ballot I can't wait to see $15 NOW explain why total comp is ok for Hyatt & Mariott hotels but not ok for local companies like Tom Douglass or Dicks Drive-in.
35
"So, what institute of higher learning in Bellevue should fill us with dread with their descending hordes of "keen" students out to take all our minimum wage jobs? Evergreen Beauty & Barber College Bellevue? DeVry? City University of Seattle? Bellevue College?"

Gee honey, maybe UW? or any college in the US? Or a college in any country anyone for Bellevue may have studied at?

Or maybe you think no one leaves Bellevue for college? Clearly you'll lose a $15 an hour job to someone with a better education.
36
@35 It seems I may owe Sugartit an apology for implying that it would be absurd to think people here could not remember or scroll back to the comment @7.

So, explain to me how the collegians I have somehow "overlooked" are Sugartit's bogeymen? Those "keen college grads from Bellevue" out to take the people of Seattle's sweet, sweet minimum wage jobs that we should all fear.

I don't know many people who would describe UW students as not being part of Seattle, even those who come in on 520, and it's not like someone from Harvey Mudd is taking shifts out at the downtown Target in between classes.

As for your ad hominem, I guess I am a Seattle dropout and clearly not worth only $15.
37
@#2 Joe is 100% correct.

There was an expectation from the beginning that any action on the part of the mayor or city council would result in a resolution/amendment/charter - which is exactly whet is happening.

The mayor & some on the council, frankly, have been a bit duplicitous. They play to their backers, (in the mayor's case, Labor) and expecting it to be out of their hands in the long run, they just do what they know will be best for THEM, and not the city with the expectation that upon seeking higher office, Labor (in this case) will be on their side. That's not to say that the whole council is like that.

@6 Ruke, that is exactly the plan, to be honest. But, it appears that the big business interests are not running a initiative/charter, so it may be between just the crazy and now-discredited $15 Now one, and another, more reasonable, thoughtful & realistic option. But, there may be some in the works that are under the radar.

@#13 - Wow. Sour grapes much, Goldy?
38
"Those "keen college grads from Bellevue" out to take the people of Seattle's sweet, sweet minimum wage jobs that we should all fear."

@$15/hr every high school dropout will be competing with better educated kids from all over Puget Sound. Why would I hire a fuck up from Seattle to ice cupcakes when I can easily get an English major to from Shoreline or Renton to do it?
39
Ah the Slog, where getting money you don't have the skills to earn is a "right" and armed self defense is a privileged.
40
@37:

Labor is NOT Murray's "backer" on this issue. They may have backed him in the elections (although it certainly wasn't universal), but regardless, this latest move to water-down the $15MW proposal clearly works against the agenda set forth by labor, as Brother Freiboth makes apparent in his comments.
41
@37

Here's what's idiotic about your online behavior: Everyone knows you are Andrew Friedman, of Liberty. So you're acting like an angry anonymous troll who makes wild accusations, but you might as well be posting as "Andrew Friedman". Goldy is of course David Goldstein.

So you, Andrew Friedman, get online every day, and you libel David Goldstein with these nonsense insults and accusations and fabrications. That's silly, and reckless. It's so... so... you know, so Donald Sterling.

More evidence that the "elite", the "job creators", are just lucky fucking douchebags. Sure, there's one or two Bill Gates or Steve Jobses out there. But the vast majority of the business owners, your typical boss, such as yourself, is careless and ignorant. You don't even know what you're doing to to your own business with your childish online games.

Anyway, you need to stop and realize that David Goldstein is an actual real human person who knows exactly who you are, Mr. Friedman. And you still have no clue who I am. I could be a 9 year old Hindu boy. I could be a 68 year old retiree in Pocatello. I could be your mom.

And whoever I turn out to be (spoiler: you'll never find out) you're the one with something to lose here, not me.
42
@38 "Why would I hire a fuck up from Seattle to ice cupcakes when I can easily get an English major to from Shoreline or Renton to do it?"

I can no more fathom why studying English in college would necessarily make one a better cupcake icing employee, than grasp why you think that should bother me that you would skip normal business practice and simply hire based on said prejudice.
43
@41 apparently you don't know what the word libel means. Comparing someone to Donald Sterling, aka a racist, is way more libellous that suggesting someone has sour grapes. You even go so far as to libel "the vast majority of business owners" are careless and ignorant. So please explain how suggesting someone has sour grapes is more libellous than suggesting someone is an ignorant careless racist?

Cthulu the fact that you don't realize you are being libellous while accusing others of the same shows you are the ignorant one. It is ironic sthag while you are accusing others of libel & ignorance you are demonstrating both of those yourself.

44
@43 If you are trying to back your claim that you know libel, shouldn't you at least be making allusions to the idea that the statements were false and caused harm, or that they were inadequately researched?
45
The MLKCLC is filled with what Trotsky called "aristocrats of labor", and as an Anarchist ,I don't give a hoot what their opinion is!!! (relating to a livable wage ). --- http://www.whywork.org , http://www.iwa-ait.org , http://flag.blackened.net (A)
46
@45:

I'm quite sure the feeling is mutual.
47
Hoping signature gatherers for #15Now will be at the SIFF lines, not just Folklife

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