Seattle is Smoking Pot - Pushes Minimum Wage to $15.00 an Hour

By Elizabeth Nelson

I have family that lives in Puyallup, WA, just outside, Seattle, I guess I’ll be seeing them in Jacksonville, soon, when the cost of living goes through the roof in their home town, now that the minimum wage is going up for menial jobs like fast food joints. If you read the article, the Seatac mall, the suburbs of Seattle, the minimum wage was already $15 an hour, but they weren’t satisfied with having to compete for the higher paying salary like the rest of us, by getting an education and presenting themselves in a better light. 

No, it’s just easier to force employers to shell out more for insurance, salaries and overhead, and why not, money grows and trees and it’s not the employee’s money, right?  I wish we could see what happened to a Country that tried raising the minimum wage to a living wage and see what happened there … oh wait, we do, we have our moderately socialist (with their primary universal health care, fairly comprehensive social welfare system and living wage) friends Australia as one of many failed examples.


The Seattle City Council affirmed its intent Monday to pursue an ambitious plan to create thousands of new jobs for unemployed robots that have been devastated by the recent recession.


The plan will also raise the minimum wage for workers in Seattle to $15 an hour, the highest rate in the nation for a major American city. The minimum wage in the nearby suburb of Seatac already is $15 an hour.



The new wage, pushed forward by Socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant with the help of big labor allies, will phase in through a multi-year process. For the first few years, though, businesses will be able to count tips and health insurance contributions toward the new rate, exceptions opposed by Sawant and her big government coalition.



The deal, which passed 9-0 in committee, also allows employers to pay training wages to young and disabled workers — a wage set by employers.


The process will begin April 1, 2015, and proceed through 11 years. Businesses that employ more than 500 workers will be required to pay workers $15 an hour by 2017, or a year later if the business offers health insurance benefits. Smaller companies would have longer to phase in the increases.



Sawant led a failed minority effort to strip from the law the allowances for training wages, tip credits and health care. She also failed to move the effective date to Jan. 1, the original date proposed by Mayor Ed Murray in the original agreement. The council pushed the data back three months to allow businesses to prepare for the higher wages.



Sawant suggested the exceptions to the law were designed as a favor to “big business.”  Still, the upstart Sawant had some exultant words to mark her victory in pushing the city to the higher wage. “We did this,” Sawant declared in her closing remarks. “Workers did this.”



She also called for more socialist and independent candidates to run for office across the country to fight the battle against “corporate politics.”



“Fifteen in Seattle is just a beginning,” Sawant said. “We have an entire world to win with solidarity.”



Councilmember Bruce Harrell pushed back against the notion that the council bowed to corporate interests.  “That’s crap,” Harrell said. “That’s absolutely crap.”



Councilmember Sally Clark echoed Harrell, telling the oft-booing crowd that the council had to appease differing factions to work a deal. “Politics is the art of compromise,” Clark counseled the displeased crowd. “It is the art of the doable deal.”



The issue is far from settled, though. The International Franchise Association told Watchdog.org it is considering legal action against the City Council. The association said it objects to the new wage law considering franchises as big businesses, forcing them to pay the higher wages before their than small business counterparts.



The soon move may kick off new efforts to find new workplace efficiencies in the Emerald City. A hotel cafe in the city of Seatac recently shuttered because of the $15 wage. The Seattle Times notes, though, that a less labor-intensive eatery soon may open in its place.



The Washington Policy Center also pointed out that the new policy already is keeping business owners up at night.



“Yeah, robots are taking our jobs, and it’s not a question of if, but when and how,” Merchant wrote. “Economists often treat the service industry as some last bastion of downsize-proof labor, but, clearly, robots will make sandwiches and take orders, too.”
Remember I wrote about robots that can do the job of several employees; don’t think it can’t happen.  How many of us have been through an automated car wash at a gas station, when we were too lazy to wash our car? I’m sure my grandparents never thought they’d see a day when party lines would end or that their phone would be replaced by a portable little phones that they could actually walk around town with or Big Bands would be replaced by radios either.

When will this Country wake up and come back to itself and remember how great it used to be, remembering that it once took pride in the labors of work and sometimes that work meant an education to better ones self. It’s not just the vocabulary but the skills necessary to get through life; it’s not about “acting white” but about acting “right.”  Why should you, straight out of high school, get more then someone like me, who has a college degree and years of experience? You expect us to pay you “what your worth,” what makes you think we aren’t already? If you want us to “show you the money,” you have to be willing to “put up” or “shut up.”  This isn’t a “free ride” toots, the Obama-train left last year with the Gravy-Train.  Get an education or get left behind.