We’re a bunch of Seattle’s progressive small companies who’re towards the brand new Metropolis Council’s assaults on our metropolis’s historic $15 minimal wage regulation. We imagine these assaults are the start line of an try and essentially undermine the minimal wage and that they have to be defeated.
We’re pleased with the motion of working individuals, unions, and progressive small companies that made Seattle the primary main metropolis to go a $15 minimal wage—a few of us had been a part of that motion a decade in the past.
At the moment, we rejected the scaremongering techniques and lies being put ahead by large enterprise pursuits and company Democratic Metropolis Council members who had been towards $15 per hour. We additionally reject them now.
We refuse to just accept the false dichotomy that, to be able to succeed, small companies must assault our workers’ wages and advantages.
As an alternative, we decide to combating for progressive measures to assist each small companies and dealing individuals on this metropolis, like making a small-business assist program paid for by increasing the Amazon Tax—which taxes our metropolis’s wealthiest companies—and combating for business and residential lease management. Former Councilmember Kshama Sawant tirelessly put ahead these and different small-business-friendly coverage proposals throughout her decade in workplace, however the Democrats on the Metropolis Council refused to assist them, as an alternative siding with large enterprise and company landlords each time.
We’re scripting this letter in response to the anti-worker laws District 3 Councilmember Pleasure Hollingsworth put ahead simply earlier than the tip of the council session this summer time, which she has promised to re-introduce within the fall after some “strategic tweaks.” The invoice she launched, if handed, would enshrine the two-tier system of wages that was set to run out in 2025, making a everlasting sub-minimum wage for staff at companies who make use of 500 individuals or fewer. This may imply that over 200,000 of our metropolis’s minimum-wage staff could be denied a minimum of $3/hour of wage will increase.
Companies with 500 or so workers aren’t “small,” however someplace between Zeeks and Pagliacci sized chains with 13-20 places. Let’s be clear, the actual intention of this laws is to start to dismantle our progressive $15/hour regulation on behalf of huge enterprise. Hollingsworth’s try and make the lower-tier wage everlasting is only a first step down that path. If our group lets the Metropolis Council get away with this assault, it would solely embolden them, and the massive enterprise pursuits they serve, to maintain attacking our minimal wage, and different progressive victories, together with renters’ rights.
And such a invoice wouldn’t simply be a blow to staff in this metropolis. If any rollback of our minimal wage is profitable in Seattle, the assaults will unfold to different main cities throughout the nation, attacking the wages of tens of millions of staff. We can not let that occur.
It’s no accident that Hollingsworth and the opposite Councilmembers are hiding behind small companies with this assault. Most individuals wouldn’t really feel sympathy for the massive companies who’ve made document income lately. Hollingsworth has mentioned that her invoice is motivated by concern for small enterprise homeowners who’re affected by sustained losses incurred through the pandemic. These are crocodile tears. In actuality, when small companies had been struggling underneath COVID and the massive majority of support subsidies had been going to large companies—not small—neither Seattle nor D.C. Democrats lifted a finger to face up for us.
And what in regards to the incalculable sacrifices staff made through the pandemic, solely to now be rewarded with a pay lower whereas going through down hovering rents and prices of dwelling? Fairly than in search of progressive options, like growing the Amazon Tax and making the billionaires pay, the Council Democrats are going after the bottom paid, most weak staff on this metropolis.
Many small companies are struggling for a similar causes staff are—rents have skyrocketed and we’re continuously getting pushed out by large companies like Amazon and Starbucks.
In the meantime, Amazon raked in document income all through the pandemic, reporting a revenue improve of over 220% within the first quarter of 2020 alone. Company builders additionally took benefit of the Covid disaster, having no qualms elevating Seattle rents by 24% in 2021.
Since then, inflation hasn’t stopped and rents are nonetheless going up. For a lot of staff in Seattle, it’s arduous to dwell near the place they work even on the present minimal wage. Based on a brand new survey, 64% of Seattle-area renters had a rise in lease previously 12 months. For many, the rise was greater than $100 per thirty days. And much more surprising, Seattle metro space rents elevated by almost 92 p.c between 2010 and 2020. Employees are definitely not given a reduction on their lease as a result of they work at a small enterprise.
As progressive small enterprise homeowners, we acknowledge the rise within the minimal wage has made it extra attainable for a lot of of our staff to remain dwelling within the metropolis, keep working at our small companies, and have cash of their pockets to spend. Not solely do staff deserve a dwelling wage, but it surely works to the advantage of Seattle’s small companies.
Ten years in the past after we had been combating for the $15 minimal wage, large companies introduced out rooster little arguments, saying that Seattle would turn out to be a ghost city, or that the rise within the minimal wage would harm staff slightly than assist them. This was all nonsense, and a decade later, the sky nonetheless has not fallen. But now these identical drained arguments are being trotted out as soon as extra, once more with completely no information to again them up. It is usually suspect that the loudest voices in assist of this assault are among the identical (not so small) enterprise homeowners who had been towards $15/hour ten years in the past.
This assault on our minimal wage has nothing to do with small companies, and every little thing to do with paving the way in which for large companies to maximise their income by clawing again our historic minimal wage victory and others our actions have gained over the previous decade. The Council Democrats is not going to cease if they’re profitable on this assault. Actually, this might solely add gasoline to their broader conservative agenda. This completely company metropolis council has already made it clear that our renters’ rights are of their crosshairs as nicely, starting with rolling again the bans on winter and school-year evictions.
We’re subsequently calling on fellow progressive small enterprise homeowners: don’t permit Democrats to make use of us as a defend to assault staff on behalf of huge enterprise. Be part of us in getting organized towards these regressive assaults. And struggle for actual options like business lease management and taxing large enterprise.
Our minimal wage is the very best within the nation exactly as a result of it was gained by a robust motion of staff and unions, led by Sawant’s socialist metropolis council workplace, combating towards vicious opposition from large enterprise and the Council Democrats. And that’s what it would take to defend it.
Shirley Henderson, Squirrel Chops
Caleb Hoffmann, previously of Blotto
Cathy Kerns, HIIT LAB
Ian Pattern, Ballard Jiu Jitsu
Michelle Forbes, PJ’s Basic Creamery
Mike Dempster, MIRAGE Beer Co.
Swanson’s Shoe Restore
Amy Graham, Jilted Siren
Shirley Henderson is the proprietor of Squirrel Chops in Seattle’s Central District. She and the opposite signers of this letter are organizing progressive small companies to testify in public remark at Metropolis Corridor, beginning tomorrow, September 2nd at 2pm.
