Last month I wrote about the status of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s legal challenge to the City of Seattle’s ordinance authorizing Uber and Lyft drivers to engage in collective bargaining. Briefly:
Last year the city tried to get the case thrown out, arguing that it had “state-action immunity.” The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, and sent the case back down for further proceedings .
In December, the City Council amended its ordinance so that it no longer authorizes collective bargaining over compensation, which was very likely to be found to be illegal price-fixing among competitors..
In response, the Chamber of Commerce said that despite the change, it still believes the ordinance violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.
The Chamber of Commerce indicated last month that it will move for summary judgment, skipping a trial. This is only allowed if there are no relevant facts in dispute.
The city responded that it believes there are still relevant facts to be discovered, and will oppose the Chamber’s motion on those grounds.
The court set a schedule for both sides to file legal briefs, starting with the Chamber of Commerce.
Last Friday, the Chamber started the ball rolling by filing its brief. Here’s what it says.
This afternoon, the Department of Justice submitted its brief to U.S. District Court Judge James Robart in response to his order to show cause why the terms of the city’s contract with SPOG and the recent reinstatement of Officer Adley Shepherd don’t mean that the city has fallen out of compliance with the Consent Decree.
In its brief, the DOJ argued that the overturning by an arbitrator of Shepherd’s termination isn’t a sign of a systemic pattern or practice of excessive use of force. It also found that the SPOG collective bargaining agreement neither conflicts with the Consent Decree nor threatens to undermine compliance with it.
Now that the federal shutdown is over, U.S. District Court Judge James Robart is restarting his review of the new collective bargaining agreement with SPOG, as well as the arbitrator’s ruling reinstating Officer Adley Shepherd.
Since the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a split-decision last fall, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s legal challenge to Seattle’s ordinance granting collective-bargaining rights to Uber and Lyft drivers has been back in the hands of the district court. But it’s proceeding in starts and stops, with the occasional flurry of motions and other legal filings. Today a joint status report filed by the parties extends that pattern.
Just before Christmas, the state Court of Appeals ruled that Initiative 124, which codified certain protections for hotel workers and was passed by Seattle voters in 2016, impermissibly contained more than one topic and invalidated the ordinance.
Earlier this week, the City of Seattle and UNITE HERE Local 8, the hospitality workers’ union, announced that they are appealing that ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Today a Washington State Court of Appeals threw out Initiative 124 in its entirety, holding that it unconstitutionally contains multiple unrelated topics.
As expected, this morning the Council voted out of committee a bill that would make a major change to the 2015 ordinance authorizing Uber and Lyft drivers to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining.
Last night the city filed a response to Judge Robart as to why he shouldn’t find that SPD is no longer in full compliance with the consent decree. Attached to that filing, at the judge’s request, was the written finding of the Disciplinary Review Board (DRB) in Officer Adley Shepherd’s appeal of his termination for violating the department’s use-of-force policy in 2014 when he punched a handcuffed suspect.
The DRB’s finding, written by the neutral arbitrator on the 3-person panel, fills out more details on the case, ultimately concluding that the case was very close.
As promised, the city has appealed an arbitrator’s reversal of the firing of Officer Adley Shepherd for punching in the face a handcuffed suspect in the back of his patrol car.
This morning, the Council moved out of committee a bill that would officially create the Office of the Employee Ombud to provide assistance to city employees dealing with work-related discrimination or harassment.
