Editorial: ‘Seattle quarantine’ bill offers chance to weigh uniformity

Washington cities have been a rambunctious lot the last few years, setting minimum-wage levels and family-leave policies more liberal than those set by the state.

Spokane joined the movement last month with a safe and sick leave ordinance enacted by the City Council over the veto of Mayor David Condon.

In Seattle and SeaTac, minimum wages have been hiked to $15 an hour, and in Tacoma to $12 an hour. All were adopted by citizen initiative.

Sen. Michael Baumgartner’s SB6578 would impose a “Seattle quarantine,” but the contagion may be as containable as the Zika virus. But that is not to say state legislators should not step back and assess the virtues of uniformity prized in particular by business, versus state usurpation of the local government prerogatives.

Idaho’s Legislature, for example, sees a never-ending threat cities will exceed their authority. Most recently, lawmakers have moved to block local efforts to ban plastic bags at grocery stores.

In Washington, meanwhile, a bill has been introduced that would ban their use statewide, as they are in most Puget Sound-area cities already.

Power is top down in Idaho, more bottom up in Washington.

As originally proposed, Baumgartner’s bill would have removed from cities the ability to make wage and benefit changes, giving them instead to counties, where more conservative suburban and rural voters might help turn back higher wage/benefit initiatives. Existing city wage and workplace standards would have been rolled back.

That language wasn’t going to pass, so city standards have been grandfathered where they are already in place.

Another proposal, SB6087, takes a different approach. Rather than negate what cities have done, the bill would raise the minimum wage to $12 statewide, which supporters say will discourage an initiative that might seek as much, or more.

The Northwest Grocery Association supports that proposal because it would re-establish uniformity; the Washington Retail Association opposes because it tampers with the free market for labor.

Initiatives incubated on the West Side are a headache. The booming Puget Sound area is insulated from the cross-border competition that pressures Spokane and Vancouver.

The unemployment rate in Seattle is 4.2 percent. The current $13-an-hour wage, climbing to $15, isn’t much of a lift for employers who need workers. But it won’t buy much in the way of housing anywhere around Seattle.

Spokane’s minimum wage remains at the state level – $9.47 an hour – but now there’s that safe and sick leave sweetener, if you are an employee.

Uniformity is not a challenge for business alone. Washington officials who would like the state to negotiate teacher wages, for example, haven’t found a formula that matches salary to cost of living that would be fair to everyone.

We are sympathetic to Baumgartner’s cause, and also agree with him that his bill is a work in progress. If the labor shortage forecast by many economists within the decade materializes, the problem will likely take care of itself – if allowed to.