This year the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has heard two challenges to the City of Seattle’s ordinance authorizing collective bargaining for Uber and Lyft drivers. One was filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the other by a group of Uber and Lyft drivers. After back-to-back oral arguments in February, the appeals court ruled on the Chamber of Commerce case in May; it found that the ordinance was not exempt from the Sherman Antitrust Act. Today it handed down its ruling in the second case, affirming the district court’s dismissal of the case — a win for the city.
This afternoon Council member Kshama Sawant introduced two bills: a resolution related to EMT wages, and an ordinance to save the Showbox. She wanted to get the resolution passed this afternoon and the ordinance next Monday, but the her colleagues on the Council had other thoughts.
Thursday morning, the City Council’s Housing, Health, Energy and Workers’ Rights committee will take up the “domestic workers’ bill of rights” proposed by Council member Teresa Mosqueda.
This week Council member Teresa Mosqueda is introducing a “domestic workers’ bill of rights,” an ordinance that establishes several rights and protections for domestic workers in Seattle.
While everyone was watching the Council try to decide whether to impost a head tax, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made its own news today by ruling against the city in a case regarding its ordinance granting Uber and Lyft drivers the right to collective bargaining. But buried in the ruling is a legal precedent with potentially far greater impact.
It was a four-meeting day. I’ll write on the Civic Arenas and Budget committee meetings separately, but here’s what happened in the Council Briefing and Full Council meetings (tl;dr: Sawant voted “no” on a bunch of things)
This morning, the Council voted out of committee a resolution establishing its “work plan” for revising regulations on taxi, for-hire, and TNC (e.g. Uber and Lyft) services.
Currently under the Office of Labor Standards rules a business can get an exemption in order to pay disabled workers less that the city’s minimum wage (though not less than the state minimum wage). That’s about to change in Seattle.
This morning the City Council once more took up some proposed changes to the city’s anti-discrimination code to make explicit prohibitions against sexual harassment and extend the statute of limitations for filing a complaint. After making a further amendment, the bill was voted out of committee but put on a slow train to full Council approval to allow for some additional analysis and community outreach.
