We are a group of Seattle’s progressive small businesses who are against the new City Council’s attacks on our city’s historic $15 minimum wage law. We believe these attacks are the starting point of an attempt to fundamentally undermine the minimum wage and that they must be defeated.

We are proud of the movement of working people, unions, and progressive small businesses that made Seattle the first major city to pass a $15 minimum wage—some of us were part of that movement a decade ago. 

At that time, we rejected the scaremongering tactics and lies being put forward by big business interests and corporate Democratic City Council members who were against $15 per hour. We also reject them now. 

We refuse to accept the false dichotomy that, in order to succeed, small businesses need to attack our employees’ wages and benefits.

Instead, we commit to fighting for progressive measures to support both small businesses and working people in this city, like creating a small-business support program paid for by expanding the Amazon Tax—which taxes our city’s wealthiest corporations—and fighting for commercial and residential rent control. Former Councilmember Kshama Sawant tirelessly put forward these and other small-business-friendly policy proposals during her decade in office, but the Democrats on the City Council refused to support them, instead siding with big business and corporate landlords every time.

We are writing this letter in response to the anti-worker legislation District 3 Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth put forward just before the end of the council session this summer, which she has promised to re-introduce in the fall after some “strategic tweaks.” The bill she introduced, if passed, would enshrine the two-tier system of wages that was set to expire in 2025, creating a permanent sub-minimum wage for workers at businesses who employ 500 people or fewer. This would mean that over 200,000 of our city’s minimum-wage workers would be denied at least $3/hour of wage increases.

Businesses with 500 or so employees are not “small,” but somewhere between Zeeks and Pagliacci sized chains with 13-20 locations. Let’s be clear, the real intention of this legislation is to begin to dismantle our progressive $15/hour law on behalf of big business. Hollingsworth’s attempt to make the lower-tier wage permanent is just a first step down that path. If our community lets the City Council get away with this attack, it will only embolden them, and the big business interests they serve, to keep attacking our minimum wage, and other progressive victories, including renters’ rights. 

And such a bill would not just be a blow to workers in this city. If any rollback of our minimum wage is successful in Seattle, the attacks will spread to other major cities across the country, attacking the wages of millions of workers. We cannot let that happen.   

It is no accident that Hollingsworth and the other Councilmembers are hiding behind small businesses with this attack. Most people would not feel sympathy for the big corporations who have made record profits in recent years. Hollingsworth has said that her bill is motivated by concern for small business owners who are suffering from sustained losses incurred during the pandemic. These are crocodile tears. In reality, when small businesses were suffering under COVID and the large majority of aid subsidies were going to big businesses—not small—neither Seattle nor D.C. Democrats lifted a finger to stand up for us. 

And what about the incalculable sacrifices workers made during the pandemic, only to now be rewarded with a pay cut while facing down soaring rents and costs of living? Rather than looking for progressive solutions, like increasing the Amazon Tax and making the billionaires pay, the Council Democrats are going after the lowest paid, most vulnerable workers in this city.  

Many small businesses are struggling for the same reasons workers are—rents have skyrocketed and we’re constantly getting pushed out by big businesses like Amazon and Starbucks. 

Meanwhile, Amazon raked in record profits throughout the pandemic, reporting a profit increase of over 220% in the first quarter of 2020 alone. Corporate developers also took advantage of the Covid crisis, having no qualms raising Seattle rents by 24% in 2021.  

Since then, inflation hasn’t stopped and rents are still going up. For many workers in Seattle, it’s hard to live close to where they work even at the current minimum wage. According to a new survey, 64% of Seattle-area renters had an increase in rent in the past 12 months. For most, the increase was more than $100 per month. And even more shocking, Seattle metro area rents increased by nearly 92 percent between 2010 and 2020. Workers are certainly not given a discount on their rent because they work at a small business.

As progressive small business owners, we recognize the increase in the minimum wage has made it more possible for many of our workers to stay living in the city, stay working at our small businesses, and have money in their pockets to spend. Not only do workers deserve a living wage, but it works to the benefit of Seattle’s small businesses.

Ten years ago when we were fighting for the $15 minimum wage, big businesses brought out chicken little arguments, saying that Seattle would become a ghost town, or that the increase in the minimum wage would hurt workers rather than help them. This was all nonsense, and a decade later, the sky still has not fallen. Yet now these same tired arguments are being trotted out once more, again with absolutely no data to back them up. It is also suspect that the loudest voices in support of this attack are some of the same (not so small) business owners who were against $15/hour ten years ago.  

This attack on our minimum wage has nothing to do with small businesses, and everything to do with paving the way for big corporations to maximize their profits by clawing back our historic minimum wage victory and others our movements have won over the past decade. The Council Democrats will not stop if they are successful in this attack. In fact, this would only add fuel to their broader conservative agenda. This thoroughly corporate city council has already made it clear that our renters’ rights are in their crosshairs as well, beginning with rolling back the bans on winter and school-year evictions.  

We are therefore calling on fellow progressive small business owners: don’t allow Democrats to use us as a shield to attack workers on behalf of big business.  Join us in getting organized against these regressive attacks. And fight for real solutions like commercial rent control and taxing big business.

Our minimum wage is the highest in the country precisely because it was won by a strong movement of workers and unions, led by Sawant’s socialist city council office, fighting against vicious opposition from big business and the Council Democrats. And that is what it will take to defend it. 

 

Shirley Henderson, Squirrel Chops

Caleb Hoffmann, formerly of Blotto

Cathy Kerns, HIIT LAB

Ian Sample, Ballard Jiu Jitsu

Michelle Forbes, PJ’s Classic Creamery

Mike Dempster, MIRAGE Beer Co.

Swanson’s Shoe Repair 

Amy Graham, Jilted Siren

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Shirley Henderson is the owner of Squirrel Chops in Seattle’s Central District. She and the other signers of this letter are organizing progressive small businesses to testify in public comment at City Hall, starting tomorrow, September 2nd at 2pm.