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Washington state judge excludes airport from SeaTac's $15 minimum wage

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OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - The voter-approved law establishing a $15 minimum hourly wage for travel and hospitality workers in a Seattle suburb encompassing the region's main international airport does not apply to workers at the airport, a judge ruled on Friday. King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas ruled that the city of SeaTac does not have the authority to set workplace rules within Seattle-Tacoma International Airport because the aviation hub is owned by the Port of… (www.reuters.com) More...

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WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Wrong in soooo many ways. People just can't get enough of the government running their lives. Good luck with that.
PhotoFinish
PhotoFinish 1
There are issues that have helped to create an environment of too many workers and too few well paying jobs. The fixes need to either generate millions of great new jobs or take away millions of extra workers willing to work for very low pay.

Trying to subvert the market by legislating pay rates will have consequences.

At SeaTac, many businesses will either move to airport property or out of town.

Car rental companies will build new facilities at the airport. The higher cost of leasing space on airport property will be justified because of the high cost of operating off-site. Those operationd that don't get airport space will likely be unable to compete and eventually shut doors and terminate jobs.

Many jobs will be moved off-site. Any hotels in SeaTac would move functions such as laundry and food preparation out of town. Room rates would be higher in town than any other nearby town to pay for higher room servicing costs. In many cases, hotels will be forced to have much higher vacancy rates. There will be little inventive to sell extra inventory at a discount. Fewer people need to be hired to clean fewer used rooms. At the lower end, some properties will transition to weekly rentals, with little room servicing.

In sum total, 1 year out and 5 years out, there should be fewer jobs available in SeaTac town as businesses located there will not be able to compete with businesses in neighboring jurisdictions.

As people avoid the airport due to higher cost of traveling through SeaTac may adversely impact airlines, particularly local ones such as Alaska.

Some people may benefit from higher wages temporarily. But fewer and fewer people will benefit, as businesses close or move away. Only businesses who fit one of the exemptions can afford to stay or move into town.

For example hotel chains will move out. Motels with little room service, being run by small extended families only hiring from within, will move in. SeaTac will become a Patel paradise.

Should be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Many will be surprised that the jobs they voted for, never materialize. Many more will see their job or a neighbor's job disappear.

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