Sea-Tac Airport workers might get $15 an hour raise judge denied

Port of Seattle Commissioners signal that they intend to take up the issue of a $15 an hour minimum wage for airport workers.

The first port commission meeting of the new year was surprisingly well attended as low wage workers from Sea-Tac Airport filled the commission meeting room, asking for a raise. A King County Superior Court judge recently excluded airport workers from the city of SeaTac’s minimum wage law, passed by voters in November.

Sea-Tac City Manager Todd Cutts wrote a letter to the Port’s director of aviation Dec. 31, asking that the provisions of the city’s minimum wage law be applied to airport workers, even as the judge’s ruling is being appealed.

“Let the Port of Seattle be groundbreaking and pass this initiative, please and set great examples,” airport restaurant worker Julia Nottingham told the commission Tuesday.

Dave Freiboth, with the King County Labor Council, offered a solution.

“Your path that I would implore you to take is to do an interlocal agreement with Sea-Tac to adopt Proposition 1,” he said. “It’s your legal remedy, you’ve done ’em before, you can do ’em now, it gets us there right now and gets some dignity in these jobs.”

Port Commissioner Courtney Gregoire said the port will work with labor, business, and local government to take action on the issue.

“We are going to get to work and we have set a goal for ourselves of working through public hearings early this year and setting the stage for port action by June,” said Gregoire.

Also at the port commission meeting Tuesday, CEO Tay Yoshitani publicly announced his retirement, after 7-1/2 years, effective at the end of June, when his contract expires.