Olympia will cease implementation of its COVID-19-related ordinance that requires some grocery employers to pay hazard pay to some workers on October 31, Mayor Cheryl Selby announced at the city council meeting last night.
Selby said Gov. Jay Inslee is terminating the remaining COVID-19 proclamations and the state of emergency on October 31.
"So as a result of that announced rescission and termination of the state of emergency, grocery employees and employers should be advised that our ordinance will also cease," Selby added.
The ordinance, implemented on May 1, 2021, has obligated large chain grocery stores to pay an additional $4 an hour as hazard pay.
The ordinance sought to improve grocery worker safety, compensating workers for the risks involved in dealing with the general public by requiring compliance with the federal, state, and county health standards, and to pay employees a wage that reflects the risk to the employees, their families, and acquaintances.
Livable wage
"While the COVID emergency on paper is over, from what I'm hearing from the workers on the ground, workplace safety continues to be a great [issue] with additional crime and violence in the workplace," Councilmember Jim Cooper commented.
He added that United Food and Commercial Workers members told him that employers refused to negotiate on workplace safety issues at the bargaining table during active contract negotiation.
Cooper said had hoped to reframe the ordinance so that it would have continued to provide hazard pay for workers.
"I believe that when you look at this in the context of the lack of financial stability for a third of our community, we have a low-wage emergency of our own," Cooper said.
He added, "the best path for Olympia is to set a reasonable minimum wage for our labor market."
Mayor Pro Tem Clark Gilman expressed support for Cooper's suggestion. He said it is time to start the conversation on livable wages.
"What is a livable wage? What should the city be doing to support livable wages for workers here in the city?" Gilman inquired.
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bobkat
"BEWARE THE SLIPPERY SLOPE!" If each individual political jurisdiction begins mandating worker's wages based on their supposed exposures to on on-the-job dangers/hazards where does it end? Are workers in Olympia more exposed to hazards than those same workers in Yakima, Spokane, or even next door in Lacey or Tumwater? Are grocery workers any more deserving of government-mandated "hazard pay" than say. . . . . bus drivers, firefighters, public works employees, teachers, plumbers, truck drivers, . . . . . on-and-on, ad infinitum. Local government should stay out of such matters best left to union bargaining or to state government.
Thursday, September 29, 2022 Report this