Supreme Court’s ruling may not be the final word on $15 at Sea-Tac

Seemingly putting an end to a local debate over minimum wage, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that employees at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport must be included in the local $15 rate.

“It seemed like a well-reasoned opinion,” KIRO political analyst and former attorney general Rob McKenna told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz. “Apparently there wasn’t much evidence provided that applying the minimum wage at the airport would interfere with airport operations.”

The Washington Supreme Court ruled that SeaTac’s $15 per hour minimum wage does apply to the employees of the Port of Seattle, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Employers at the airport argued that since they do business out of an operation under the purview of the Port of Seattle, an outside agency, they should be immune from the local minimum wage standard.

SeaTac’s residents voted in favor of a local $15 per hour minimum wage in 2013. The airport is included in the town’s borders. The Port of Seattle backed the employers’ argument, as did two court rulings prior to the issue landing with the Supreme Court.

But this week, the Supreme Court reversed those rulings, by a 5-4 vote, ultimately deciding that the minimum wage does apply to the airport businesses.

“Here, because there wasn’t evidence that higher minimum wage would affect the operation of the airport, they concluded that state law and the SeaTac municipal ordinance could be harmonized,” McKenna said.

It is unknown why no evidence of how the $15 minimum wage would affect the employers was presented, according to McKenna. He noted that it could be that such evidence doesn’t exist.

“Apparently, they didn’t try or weren’t able to make that case effectively,” he said.

The recent ruling, however, may not be the final word on the issue.

“It’s possible that a change in the evidence or facts on the ground would cause the courts to take another look at it,” McKenna said.

In other words, after a couple of years, with hard numbers on record, employers could return to the courts and argue that the minimum wage is hurting them; should the evidence reflect that.