Seattle City Council considering changes to $15 an hour plan, including training wage

By some accounts, the mayor’s plan to raise the minimum wage in Seattle is falling apart, based on news stories and comments from labor and business groups.

Labor groups want to limit the phase-in period that businesses are allowed to implement $15 an hour. Business groups want more flexibility, including a training wage of less than $15 an hour for younger or unskilled workers.

City Council chair Sally Clark is amused by suggestions that the deal is in trouble. “Reading some of the media accounts of the questions that are being raised and whether the deal is falling apart has been very dramatic. Mostly, this is what councilmembers do. We ask questions about proposals in order to fully understand it.”

Mayor Ed Murray’s plan is based on months of negotiations and a recommendation from an advisory committee of business, labor, non-profits and others. He seems inclined to make at least one concession to business, adding a starter wage for employees in training.

“If we were going to go this direction, for me it would have to be a very short training period, uh, 30 days, 60 days and at that point, you can’t really say you’re training anymore. You’re trained and you need to be earning the legally required minimum wage at that point,” Clark said during Thursday’s meeting of the council’s Committee on Minimum Wage and Income Equality.

Councilmember Kshama Sawant complained that a training wage is simply a way for fast food businesses to hold down costs because of high turnover.

“I don’t think that we want to encourage that,” she countered.

Fast food franchise holders are considered big business, defined as 500 employees or more, under the mayor’s plan. McDonald’s, Burger King, even Subway would have to follow the rules for big business, including franchise owner Matthew Hollick. “Please do not judge my business as a large business, I have eight employees, I’m not a large business.”

But Sawant wants no exceptions.

“If we start making this loophole where fast food and franchisees are considered small businesses, we’re going to be selling out the very people who fought for this and brought us here,” she said.

Then there’s the non-profits, who want a longer $15 an hour minimum wage phase-in period. Right now, that’s three to seven years, depending on the size of the business. Councilmember Tom Rasmussen points out that many non-profits are social service agencies and the wage plan could take money that would otherwise be used to provide services to the very people who would benefit most from a higher minimum wage.

The committee has canceled its next scheduled meeting on Tuesday and will meet again next Thursday to consider more possible changes to the minimum wage plan.