Comments

1
Strike
2
@1 Yes, because it'll be impossible to replace these folks.
3
So, you want them to appeal the court decision regarding the min wage setting authority at the Port of Seattle but also pressure the commissioners to use that authority being appealed ? Sounds like an easy out.... we are awaiting the appeal decision.

Also, opponents can simply point to the high cost of car rentals at the airport and high prices of hotels near the airport and say "see what happens".
4
Be a shame if we had to cap the pay of port employees at $150 an hour ... Initiative, anyone?

Note the affected workers tend to be less white than the ones with a minimum wage
5
The wages at the airport will have to rise in order to attract and retain workers that could otherwise work off the property.
6
Are TSA security checkpoint employees considered airport employees or federal employees?
7
Sea Tac is operated by the Port of Seattle. It's in the City of Sea Tac, but not subject to the ruling of the $15.00 minimum wage law. Let Mcdonalds and the fast food people work this out, leave Sea Tac out of it.
8
@2 Not impossible. These jobs you speak of are not security jobs, not they aren't important but they are not jobs that require extensive training. $15.00 an hour is still below what it takes to have an apartment, have a car payment and pay your utilities. Blame the republicans, they say, go to school, get a trade, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Good luck, Charlie.
9
The Port of Seattle is one of the few ports (maybe the only port?) that relies partly on property taxes to operate (although they get awfully touchy about it if you bring it up). That sort of makes us shareholders, doesn't it?
10
@6

People working for the TSA are federal employees.
11
@3 No, dummy. Read the post again. Goldy's saying that he's reserving judgment until he takes a closer look at the decision, but that it appears to be pretty fair at first sight. He's also saying that the ruling clears the way for other municipalities to raise the minimum wage for themselves by invalidating the opponents' arguments.

And, Goldy suggests, car rental employees working on airport property will not have their wages affected by the initiative.

So I guess that, like gay marriage, the living wage battle will have to be fought and won locally. Hopefully @5 is right and the rising tide will lift all boats, though this thus suck for airport employees. I'm not holding my breath for the industry-friendly Port of Seattle Commissioners to do much about this.
12
That's concerning for the City of Seattle. By Darvas (a terrible judge just as she was a terrible lawyer) denying application of the law to non-Seatac property (i.e., Port property), could a similar ruling by another judge deny a higher minimum wage to workers who are employed by the feds, or the county, or the state in facilities that are in Seattle? UW employees are state employees.
13
This is an interesting decision. It appears to give the Port only an exemption for business actually conducted on Port property. Alaska and their subcontractors have very extensive operations conducted adjacent to Port property, so this decision creates a bit of an administrative nightmare for them. The net result may still be to raise minimums for many/most employers on Port facilities.

For example, a shuttle driver may be construed as conducting business off Port property while moving between passenger pick up and the rental car facility. See page 13 around line 14 for reference.
14
@11, floater, your brain is made up of floaters. My reading comprehension is working fine.

Inevitable appeal, assuming the ruling is upheld, time to push the comissioners to enact minimum wage law... all stated by Mr Goldy. Maybe I should have specified the base rental rates for SeaTac car rental lots located just off the airport property so you'd have more breadcrumbs to follow.
15
Sounds like a fair ruling to me.
16
If any of this minimum wage initiative is upheld on appeal, count on a major effort in the Legislature to prohibit wage control by local government. Exactly like happened with rent control some years ago.
17
@16, yes, the state Senate will probably do something, just because they are b*stards (which is why they do anything), and Chopp may not find it interesting enough to stop it in the House.
18
"The wages at the airport will have to rise in order to attract and retain workers that could otherwise work off the property."

Unless there's an unlimited supply of low skill, low education workers to replace them.
19
@17 It won't get through the House. And besides, we have a Democratic governor who is only governor because he won an overwhelming percentage of the vote in Seattle. He either vetoes such a measure or he loses reelection.
20
@19 a democrat won the overwhelming Seattle vote! Wow! Fucking amazing! How did he pull that off Goldensteinenberg ? Your political senses are fucking brilliant! You'd think it was swing voters who made the difference. The centrists who liked his no new taxes pledge.
21
@ 20 Centrists or hardcore right wingers who see taxes as stealing because they are off their meds. Inslee is like Murray in 2010, he won because of king co and seattle going big for him.
22
@21 so why did inslee make his no new taxes pledge? To help him lose? Seattle would vote democrat if it was a child molester.
23
So does the state minimum wage apply at the Port of Seattle? Is the judge saying that the Port of Seattle is its own munincipality? What other agencies are independent in this way? Are the Colman Dock and King County Courthouse not part of the City of Seattle? Is the Federal Building not part of the State of Washington?

Are they like Indian reservations and embassies - sovereign and separate? What are the limitations of that independence? Can SeaTac police arrest you at the airport? Should the Seattle Fire Department respond to a call to Colman Dock?
24
Some nice spin, there is zero good news. We had a $15 minimum wage in seatac, now we don't for a majority of the targeted jobs. That's bad news, and the only news. When you start saying that today's good news is that the sky didn't cave in, you're in trouble, or ethically damaged.

@5, we're not talking about enough jobs for macro principles to really apply. Until unemployment really dips, they'll be a big enough pool of no-skill labor to fill those state-minimum jobs.
25
I wonder what other laws for the City of SeaTac are not valid at the airport. Are Seattle City laws not valid at the Port?
26
Supposedly the Port is a "municipal corporation" (according to the language in a recent legal brief). That would indicate it's a discrete entity, and since the airport is part of the Port, airport employees are not included in the City of SeaTac (or Seattle).
27
Here is the strike page. Like it.

www.facebook.com/SeaTac15Now
28
Wow. So no City of Seattle laws apply on Port property. There are a lot of City laws that I'm sure people would like to violate.

It's weird to think that there's all of this stuff that's legal to do on Port property but illegal to do across the street. If you want to do any of those illegal things, you can do them with impunity so long as you do it on Harbor Island, Fisherman's Terminal, Pier 66, Pier 69, Terminal 91, or down at the Waterfront.

Is this really the way our society wants things ordered? I don't think so.

Please wait...

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