With Seattle’s $15 minimum-wage law now in effect, activists in Tacoma and elsewhere are pushing their own versions.
Tali Weitzman, of Olympia, is working two part-time jobs while going to college full time. Even with those two jobs, she says, it’s not enough to support herself.
Despite her minimum-wage jobs at Taco Bell and at a child-care center, and having a roommate, she still runs out of money to pay for groceries or gas. She’s had to rely on financial help from her mother this quarter.
“I don’t even have enough to put into savings,” she said. “I opened up a savings account but there’s nothing in it.”
Weitzman is among thousands of people nationwide, including in Washington, who are expected to participate in demonstrations Wednesday pushing for higher minimum wages.
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Seattle set a precedent when last summer it became the first large city to set a $15 minimum- wage goal. Since then, other cities around the country have passed their own minimum-wage laws.
In Washington, even as a bill for a higher statewide minimum of $12 stalled in the Legislature this session, activists are pushing cities to raise the wage floor, as Seattle has done.
Tacoma appears to be the closest to putting a minimum-wage measure to a vote. But advocates in Olympia, Spokane and other cities are pushing, too.
Adding visibility to their efforts will be rallies Wednesday morning planned for Spokane, Yakima, Pasco and Olympia, and at Sea-Tac Airport.
Then, Wednesday afternoon, workers including Uber drivers, department-store employees, home-care workers and others are expected to participate in rallies in different locations around Seattle.
“Seattle set a precedent,” said Sage Wilson of Working Washington, a union-backed advocacy group that helped organize the rallies. “But winning $15 in Seattle is just the beginning. Workers across the state and across the country have to get there still.”
In Tacoma, advocates for a $15 minimum wage are gathering signatures to put a citizens initiative before the City Council or on the November ballot.
The measure they’ve proposed is more aggressive than Seattle’s, requiring all businesses with annual gross revenue of $300,000 or more to pay their workers at least $15 an hour.
If the Tacoma initiative is approved, the $15 minimum would take effect likely around the first of the year. A cost-of-living adjustment, tied to the inflation rate, would kick in each year afterward.
Initiative backers say they’ve already gathered more than 3,800 signatures, and have a goal of 5,000 before the early June deadline.
If they get all of the 3,160 valid signatures needed, the initiative goes before the City Council, which may enact it but can’t modify it. If the council rejects it or takes no action, the measure goes on the November ballot.
Tom Pierson, president and CEO of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, believes there’s little chance the council will pass the measure, so it’s likely to go on the fall ballot.
He objects to the measure on several fronts. “I feel like we’re putting the Seattle solution in Tacoma, which doesn’t work,” he said. “Our economy isn’t Seattle’s.”
At the same time, the measure calls for a much shorter timeline to reach $15 an hour than Seattle does.
Seattle’s law, which kicked in April 1, has a faster track for large businesses with more than 500 employees. Those businesses are expected to pay employees $15 an hour by 2018 at the latest. Smaller businesses have until 2021 at the latest.
“If this wasn’t so dramatic — going from $9.47 to $15 overnight,” Pierson said of the proposed Tacoma measure.
Not knowing if the initiative will get on the ballot or win approval means it’s hard for businesses to plan their expenses for the next couple of years, he said.
Pierson also objects to the $300,000 gross-revenue bar, which he believes means that practically every business will be subject to the provisions.
“To be under that, it would probably be someone who sells Tupperware part time out of their house,” he said.
But Sarah Morken, a volunteer with 15 Now Tacoma, says, “We’ve been here for a year and a half. We’ve been begging people to come to the table and help us write this. Where were they?”
While Morken acknowledges that paying workers $15 an hour may not be painless, “it’s a social-justice issue. If people base their businesses on poverty-level wages, that’s not right.”
The city of Olympia also appears open to discussing an increase in the minimum wage.
“It’s a place where we have that same kind of combination (as in Seattle) of workers taking action, sympathetic elected officials and strong public support,” said Wilson of Working Washington.
While’s there’s no proposal before the Olympia City Council, there’s been discussion about taking a look at sick leave and minimum- wage laws.
The effort there is just beginning, said Jim Cooper, an Olympia council member.
About 80 percent of the businesses in Olympia have fewer than 10 employees, he said, adding that “we need to make sure we plan for that if we have a policy discussion.”
“Generally, I’m in favor of $15 an hour and seven days of safe and sick leave,” Cooper said. “What I don’t know is if that’s the exact right number for Olympia. I want to make sure we don’t have just an arbitrary number.”
Traction appears tougher in Bellevue, where fast-food workers and their allies staged a march last fall and where they had initially hoped to expand the $15 movement.
It’s not an issue that the mayor or Bellevue City Council has taken up, nor is it on any future council agenda.
“We’ve not been hearing from our residents or businesses on the topic,” said Emily Christensen, a spokeswoman for the city of Bellevue. “There’s not an onset of emails or people coming to talk about it at our council meetings.”