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Voters in the City of SeaTac, which is the incorporated area surrounding the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, have apparently approved an initiative to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The vote is still very, very close; but it appears that the YES vote will prevail. This result means that all non-unionized workers at the airport, nearby hotels and other businesses must be paid at least $15/hour effective January 1, 2014. The current state minimum wage is $9.19/hr in 2013 raising to $9.32/hr in 2014. There is a loophole in the new law that allows unionized workers to agree to a contract that permits a lower minimum wage, so Alaska Air will still be able to hire for unionized CSA positions at $11.33/hr. and other, unionized airlines can pay their employees the negotiated wage, but non-unionized minimum wage workers will be seeing a nice raise.
Traditionally one of Amtrak's biggest disadvantages in the travel market has been the high cost of its unionized labor contracts and one of the biggest advantages for low cost airlines competing against Amtrak is the ability to pay low wages. But in the very near future, most of the non-unionized baggage handlers, rental car agents, hotel workers and baristas that you may encounter while traveling through the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport will be earning a significantly higher wage and the higher cost of those services will be reflected on your expense account reports.
notelvis Member # 3071
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Very Interesting - -
We might see a situation where, for folks trying to squeeze a little extra out of their travel dollar, Portland becomes the more attractive airport for those of us who fly in and catch the train out..... or vice versa.
Mike Smith Member # 447
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Ignorant Utopians, trying to tell businesses what their employees are worth, will push business elsewhere. Look for fewer restaurants and stores at SeaTac.
Vincent206 Member # 15447
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Trivial fact: $1.8 million was spent on advertising during the campaign and the total number of votes counted so far is less than 6,000.
That's over $300 spent per voter!
Geoff Mayo Member # 153
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I can't find it now but somebody did a back-of-an-envelope estimate of how much it would affect the average customer at (a) an airport restaurant; (b) an airport hotel. The answer was (a) maybe 50c on your Big Mac; (b) maybe that $89 hotel room went up to $90. In other words, not a lot. That extra $6 or whatever per hour multiplied by a few employees at a time is obviously divided by a steady stream of customers.
Vincent's numbers are interesting. Who directly paid for the advertising?
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