Seattle Minimum Wage: Business Group Trying to Repeal City's $15-Per-Hour Law
A Seattle business group has taken a big step toward the possible repeal of Seattle's recently approved $15 minimum wage, according to a report from Reuters.
Forward Seattle, an organization that represents many of the city's businesses, last week submitted a petition to the Seattle city clerk with more than 20,000 signatures supporting the repeal.
Organization Chairwoman Angela Cough told Reuters that just 16,510 signatures were needed to put the measure on the November ballot.
The measure proposes repealing the $15 minimum wage increase that the Seattle City Council approved last month. It would go into effect over multiple years.
The wage increase requires business with less than 500 employees to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next seven years, Reuters reported. Seattle's current minimum wage is $9.32 per hour.
Businesses above that employee threshold must reach $15 an hour in three years, or four years if they provide employees health coverage.
"Right now, the ordinance on the table we think is going to be pretty damaging to the city from the business perspective and from the worker's perspective," Cough told Reuters. She said it would hurt the city's labor force because businesses are preparing to move from Seattle or slow expansion.
Instead of the $15 wage, Forward Seattle is proposing a $12.50 minimum wage by 2020, according to a letter written by Cough and presented on the Seattle Post Intelligencer website.
"We believe the Citizens of Seattle are entitled to their right to vote on an issue of this magnitude as the outcome will so greatly affect the economic stability and development of our City," Cough wrote. "It is time for us to be heard."
Yes for Seattle, a group that supports the approved minimum wage, this week filed a complaint to local prosecutors accusing Forward Seattle of lying to get signatures, according to Reuters. The signature gatherers are accused of saying that the petition was in support of the wage increase.
Cough did not comment on the allegations.
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