SeaTac workers have a reason to celebrate after the Washington Supreme Court ruled 5-4 yesterday that the $15 minimum wage passed by a recent voter referendum should apply to thousands of airport employees.
SeaTac surrounds Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and many of its 28,000 residents are employed by companies near and in the airport. SeaTac became the first city in the nation to enact a $15 minimum wage after voters approved a 2013 ballot measure, Proposition 1, that took effect January 1, 2014.
The measure benefited 1,600 workers from hotels, restaurants, rental car agencies and parking lots that surround the airport. But a number of companies operating at the airport, including Alaska Airlines, filed a lawsuit against SeaTac which halted the minimum wage law from going into effect for airport workers. A King County Superior Court judge ruled that airport workers were excluded since the airport is owned by the Port of Seattle. The case then made its way to the state’s Supreme Court last June.
Those who work in the airport itself consist of a majority of the city’s workforce, but the minimum wage increase was not applied for them. Socialist Seattle Councilwoman Kshama Sawant was one of four people arrested in a protest outside of Alaska Airlines in November. A statement on her website notes Proposition 1 includes guaranteed paid sick leave and worker job protection. The new ruling will affect an estimated 4,700 airport employees and also allows retroactive backpay to January 1, 2014. Workers’ next paychecks should show an hourly wage of $15.24.
“This important ruling helps protect the rights of workers at SeaTac Airport and recognizes the broad authority state and local governments have to support their hard-working residents,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a written statement.
Valarie Long, Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which helped lead the $15 campaign in SeaTac, said in a statement, “While we celebrate this victory, we understand the fight against economic imbalance in our nation is far from over. Many baggage handlers, cabin cleaners and wheelchair attendants are paid as little as $10 per hour, without access to healthcare.”
Airport workers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and St. Louis have recently earned minimum wage increases, but workers in New York and Boston are fighting.
“SeaTac Airport employees and their allies will continue to stand together with others at major origin and destination airports in the fight for $15 and union rights movement to raise standards for all,” said Long.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.