n May 1, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced he had brokered a deal to raise the city’s minimum wage for all workers from $9.32 to $15 an hour, the highest in the country. That in itself was remarkable. Even more so was that Murray did it without the anger and political bloodshed that’s pitted employers against workers in other cities and has stalled efforts in Congress to increase the federal minimum wage. In what may be a model for other cities and states, Murray put business leaders, union bosses, and community advocates in a room for months with simple instructions: work out your differences, or else.

The “or else” was that Murray and the city council would do it without them. He had the political momentum to back up the threat. When Murray, a Democrat, took office in January, the region seemed ready for a minimum pay bump. Voters in a small town to Seattle’s south, SeaTac, passed a measure to raise wages for transportation and hospitality workers to $15 an hour. Seattle elected a socialist to the city council on a living wage platform. Rather than push his own proposal through the city council, or risk outside groups bringing ballot initiatives that would likely turn ugly and draw the attention of special interest money, he appointed a 24-member group to reach an agreement. “If you want people to get here in the end, you need to bring them to the table,” he says.

To co-chair the group, Murray chose two men on opposite sides of the debate: Howard Wright, founder of Seattle Hospitality Group, an investor in the iconic Space Needle, and David Rolf, president of a local SEIU Healthcare union. The idea tested the widely held assertion put forth by business groups that employers can’t afford to pay workers more. It also offered an alternative to the confrontational battles employees have waged elsewhere, such as the coordinated strikes by fast-food workers in New York and dozens of other cities.

Murray gave the group four months to work out a deal. If they failed, he vowed to present the city council with his own proposal, which both sides were sure to hate. He chose April 30 as a deadline because May is when outside groups that propose ballot initiatives typically start gathering signatures.

Local business leaders decided that joining the effort was in their best interest. “There is no doubt in my mind that this $15 is coming to Seattle,” says Wright. “So if we accept that as a premise, let’s figure out how to do it well.” Labor leaders in the group wanted a pay increase to take effect quickly; business owners wanted to phase it in over many years. Labor insisted that tips and benefits not count as part of someone’s wages; businesses thought they should be able to pay lower hourly rates if they provided other compensation such as retirement contributions. Everyone thought small businesses should get extra time to comply, but no one agreed on how to define “small.”

A month before the deadline, Murray narrowed the group to eight negotiators. The G8, as they became known, took over several rooms in the mayor’s office. A breakthrough came on April 14, when someone—the person asked not to be named, Rolf says—sketched out a chart showing how a proposed compromise would let wages at different workplaces rise at different rates. Businesses could count tips and health care in calculating minimum pay for workers, but only temporarily. Eventually those concessions would phase out and every employer would have to pay the same minimum wage. “You could see the body language in the room change,” says Rolf.
Story: It's On! Nobel Economists Go Head to Head Over $10.10 Minimum Wage

The proposal divided businesses into four groups. Large employers, with 500 workers or more, would need to pay $15 an hour by 2017. But if they provide health insurance, like the local outdoor retailer REI, they could have an extra year. A small business such as a dry cleaner wouldn’t have to pay $15 until 2021, but a rest
could be indexed to inflation, so they’d never need to go through a painful negotiation again.

The final plan came together late on April 30, just before Murray’s ultimatum expired. The proposal now goes to the city council, where Murray hopes to keep its nine members from taking it apart. “I imagine there will be tweaks,” he says. With too many changes, he warns, the delicate compromise could collapse.

 Jihadin wrote:
NK My wife works in the Tukwilla(sp) office in USCIS. She says pretty much the same thing that it wasn't thought out in SEA-TAC

 Ouze wrote:
The minimum wage increase in Seattle is great news for everyone, regardless of how you feel about raising it or not. Finally, we can see what actually happens, one way or the other.

nkelsch wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
NK My wife works in the Tukwilla(sp) office in USCIS. She says pretty much the same thing that it wasn't thought out in SEA-TAC

Well, some of the major issues is when people are 'exempt' then it doesn't work. Like apparently if you are a hotel with less than 100 rooms, it doesn't apply to you. So they wrote a law to focus on the large hotels. Guess what? all the large hotels now have 99 rooms and 85 rooms of 'storage' and are exempt.

One of the major perks of working in an Airport is there is a ton of food moving through the snake, and it goes bad. Almost all the transportation air and restaurant workers basically had free food because it was trash. Now the airport is basically 'throwing it away' or 'selling it to waste distributors' opposed to letting employees have it. Kinda mean on the management end, but hell, if you can sell food to companies who take it for pig farms, then so be it. No free food for employees.

And in a 11% sales tax, you now have an 8.5% living wage surcharge. What a better way to anger your customers than to throw it directly in their face. Tipping has gone down drastically and people used to make more at 7.25$ with tips than they do now with 15$ as customers are considering the 'surcharge' part of their tip or all of it.



And it doesn't address that if everyone is paying the surcharge, then everyone's purchasing power just got reduced.

I don't feel like regional or local minimum wage laws with 'exceptions' work. It is a national debate or not at all and these regional attempts are actually hurting the national debate because when someone can move 2 miles to avoid a 50% increase in wages, then the wage increase fails, and is not fair to all businesses involved. The idea of a level playing field means if I have to absorb 15$ wage, so does my competitor.

I would rather see my state increase it state-wide than see arrogant townships wreck local economies. Luckily none of these knee-jerk reactions are happening near me so it is hard to care. All of the local debates here have been gradual, state-wide and are being done in such a way to prevent the need for 'flight' to avoid it.

And here is a question: One of the major arguments is 'minimum wage people are on government assistance, we are subsidizing businesses.' How is it any different if we pay surcharges? Regardless we are 'subsidizing businesses via our buying a product. And the difference is those who need subsidizing, I am *FINE* with giving those people government assistance. I trust the government better to doll out income supplements in the form of food stamps and other programs over paying a hefty surcharge to a corporation and having it spent as a 'wage' which isn't necessarily going to the people who need it. I would rather see a single mother of 3 kids and two teenagers all making 7.25$ and giving the mother a ton of government assistance opposed to giving all 3 of them 15$ an hour and no assistance to the mother.

 Jihadin wrote:
NK My wife works in the Tukwilla(sp) office in USCIS. She says pretty much the same thing that it wasn't thought out in SEA-TAC

 whembly wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
The minimum wage increase in Seattle is great news for everyone, regardless of how you feel about raising it or not. Finally, we can see what actually happens, one way or the other.

Is it going to be that Mecca of Progressive City that some are pinning for?

Or, will it be a redux of what happened in Detroit?

 Jihadin wrote:
Eventually property taxes going to come around for increase Like Pierce 40% increase in property tax to build two new schools and then refurb the two old school. There's no cap on the property tax...

Oh and Apoc at my house on the 21st

 Ahtman wrote:
The first time this was brought up wasn't it talked about how doing a minimum wage raise in single locations was a bad idea? It either needed to be widespread or not done at all.

 Medium of Death wrote:
I love how that receipt basically has the workers pay added on at the end, simply fantastic. It's not like that money couldn't come out of the $80~

 44Ronin wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
I love how that receipt basically has the workers pay added on at the end, simply fantastic. It's not like that money couldn't come out of the $80~

I love how someone would be stupid enough to pay $84 to park their car instead of seeking a cheaper alternative.

1st world problems.

 44Ronin wrote:

 Medium of Death wrote:
I love how that receipt basically has the workers pay added on at the end, simply fantastic. It's not like that money couldn't come out of the $80~

I love how someone would be stupid enough to pay $84 to park their car instead of seeking a cheaper alternative.

1st world problems.

 whembly wrote:
Is it going to be that Mecca of Progressive City that some are pinning for?

Or, will it be a redux of what happened in Detroit?

 RiTides wrote:
Why would an energy bill or rent have a living wage surcharge? Not sure that's applicable, 44ronin.

 sebster wrote:
One of the weirdest things about travelling around the US is that the listed price out the front, or even the price on the menu, had nothing to do with what you end up actually. Over here, when it says the steak costs $22 then $22 is what you actually pay. You get to look at a menu and know what you're going to pay for a piece of food.

In the US, you see $22 for a steak and you think that's a pretty good price, but then you get the bill and you've got a whole bunch of other stuff on top of that, to which you add a tip. It was a running joke when we were over there - "I wonder how much this will actually cost? Let's find out!"

Good luck to anyone trying to put a decent control on their travel spending.

 whembly wrote:
Is it going to be that Mecca of Progressive City that some are pinning for?

Or, will it be a redux of what happened in Detroit?

Detroit is what happens when a city is built around a single industry, and economic changes mean there is no longer any reason to base the whole of that industry around a single city. The jobs move elsewhere, and the city goes in to terminal decline if it can't find alternative employment opportunities.

Which has nothing to do with minimum wage. I mean, yeah, there are job losses associated with raising the minimum wage, but outside of ludicrous increases in the minimum wage, it isn't going to wipe out whole industries. Especially not in a city like Seattle, which doesn't compete and export any kind of minimum wage industry.

 sebster wrote:
One of the weirdest things about travelling around the US is that the listed price out the front, or even the price on the menu, had nothing to do with what you end up actually. Over here, when it says the steak costs $22 then $22 is what you actually pay. You get to look at a menu and know what you're going to pay for a piece of food.

 whembly wrote:
Now that's quite interesting... makes it easier to plan a trip, eh?

It's actually, the comparison may be closer than you think.

It's the policies, like raising the min wage like this, is a microcosm of the policies that failed Detroit.

Besides... guess which group spent the most money advocating this? Once you find that out, then ask why?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
One of the greatest things about Germany that I miss the most... No matter the store or what I was buying, the price on the label was what I had to pull out of pocket. No calculating how much I need to cover relevant taxes, etc. It may be due to taxing codes/methods being different, but I've honestly no idea, but at times I'd much rather deal with the German/European style system than ours.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
The first time this was brought up wasn't it talked about how doing a minimum wage raise in single locations was a bad idea? It either needed to be widespread or not done at all.

In some ways, this isn't quite a localized issue

 44Ronin wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Why would an energy bill or rent have a living wage surcharge? Not sure that's applicable, 44ronin.

That's my point.

 Grey Templar wrote:
It won't be on there directly, but costs will go up. It will take a little while for everything to react to the change, but give it 6 months and everything in the area will get raised in response to this massive increase in the minimum wage.

You'll see hiring go way down, there will be less new businesses opening up, and they will hire fewer new employees.