Category: Blog

2014 looks to be an incredible year to be a big shot developer. The Daily Journal of Commerce reports that, “investors are paying premiums to enter core Seattle neighborhoods, while still achieving yields that are better than the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Vancouver, B.C., markets”.  In neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Eastlake rents have increased by 9.3% in just 12 months. [i]

But despite big returns and a sunny horizon, downtown developers [ii] have attempted to rig the system for their own advantage by suing the City over a marginal fee increase that provides money for affordable housing.  Not only does the lawsuit seem absurd given current market conditions, the developers never publically raised their concerns and instead went straight to a lawsuit. Advocates, affordable housing developers, community members and elected officials and many developers have been working hard together to find solutions to the overwhelming need for more affordable housing.  We all want to believe that we have the same goal of building a strong city where everyone can thrive, but this lawsuit signals developers’ main interest: their profits.

Additionally, the lawsuit appears to be an escalation of developers’ scare tactics.  For years developers have been able to operate incredibly profitably while limiting their public responsibility, threatening to sue if City Council asks them to step up their contribution to affordable housing.  Now in 2014, as City Council commits to strengthening its incentive zoning programs, developers sue over a meager fee increase that Vulcan Inc. lobbied for during the South Lake Union rezone.

The pressure on Seattle families and workers to find affordable housing within City limits is growing.   Taxpayers have done their part, and stepped up to the plate through the Housing Levy and MFTE (a program that gives developers a tax exemption in exchange for affordable housing).  It’s time that local developers in Seattle do the same.

There is no question that the success of SeaTac’s Prop. 1 is a win for workers.  But it is also a win for Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and our region’s environmental goals.  Here is why: the $15 Airport Living Wage means more families will be able to live in their communities of choice.

Recently, the Puget Sound Equity Summit brought together communities across the region to explore strategies that ensure TOD will benefit low-income communities and communities of color.  Yet, when it comes to ensuring TOD is equitable the public discussion of policy solutions rarely goes beyond affordable housing.

Housing is only one side of the equation.  Living wage jobs are the other side.

Sound Transit light rail should be a regional connector to opportunity.  With soon-to-be three stations in SeaTac, the new living wage law is a big move in that direction.  Low-income communities all along the light rail corridor currently face gentrification and other factors that economically destabilize communities (see our report, TOD that’s Healthy, Green and Just). A $15 an hour living wage at the end of the light rail will allow low-wage workers to prosper in in place.

How? Let’s use Rainier Valley as an example.   An estimated 650 people who live in Seattle’s Rainier Valley work in the city of SeaTac.[1]   With airport, hotel and ground transportation jobs making up the vast majority of employment in this small city, hundreds of Valley residents will likely benefit from Prop. 1 (see who is covered, here). Previous to Prop. 1, many of these residents not only made near-poverty wages, few had seen their wage increase over the last five years.

At the same time their wages remained low, the cost of living rose in their neighborhoods, which threatened low-wage airport workers with displacement.  The economic pressure between higher costs and stagnant income causes many families to relocate further outside of the city where the cost of living is cheaper, and where they are also more likely to need a car to drive to work.  A $15 living wage dramatically changes their odds of being able to stay in their neighborhood of choice.

More money in the pockets of these Rainier Valley families will mean their family earnings will grow with the neighborhood.  Instead of new community investments resulting in insurmountable rent increases, workers making a living wage will be more able to take cost of living increases in stride and benefit from the new infrastructure in their neighborhood.

Earning wages that families can actually live on, more people will be able to live in their communities of choice, close to transit and opportunity.   It also means fewer car trips for these residents, better environmental outcomes and a big overall win TOD near light rail.

By Nicole Vallestero-Keenan and Coco Chandi

How much you make is tied to race and gender. According to findings posted last week in The Atlantic, labor statistics show that the US workforce is stratified by race and gender. This is no newsflash to women and people of color, but the statistics below should be at the center of Seattle’s living wage debate.

Why the disparity shown in the graph? It’s partly a function of who works in what sector of the economy. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the article shows that your race has a significant influence on the kind of job you have. Blacks, who make up 11% of the workforce, represent 33% of home health aides and 25% of security guards and drivers. Latinos, who account for 15% of the workforce, represent 44% of grounds maintenance workers and 43% maids and housecleaners. Asians account for only 5% of the workforce, but represent 60% of personal appearance workers (nail salons, hairdressers, etc).

The bottom line: job sectors heavily represented by people of color and women pay lower wages. However, in SeaTac voters recently approved an industry specific living wage of $15 an hour and the measure itself shows a path forward to addressing inequity across industries.

SeaTac’s Proposition 1 covers jobs that are disproportionately held by people of color: security guards, janitors, service workers, cabin cleaners and housecleaners at hotels. When implemented, the living wage will provide a $15 dollar wage floor, paid sick leave, and job security for over 6,000 workers in the City of SeaTac .

Not only will workers in these industries earn living wages, but the measure will also boost local economic activity, bring more business to local (many people of color-owned) businesses, and create more jobs in the region. Living wage requirements don’t just help tackle income inequality, they are a powerful tool to address race and gender pay gaps.

Last week a proposal to up-zone building heights near Mt. Baker Station ignited controversy when it made a last minute appearance on the agenda for the council’s Planning, Land Use and Sustainability Committee just before the holiday.

Opponents accused the city of attempting to suddenly ram the proposal through without due community process, and claimed the up-zone would increase crime in North Rainier.

However, Community representatives are not uniformly against the proposal. Puget Sound Sage is a founding partner of Seattle’s South Communities Organizing for Racial/Regional Equity (CORE) which submitted comments to DPD over the summer supporting the proposed up-zone, and advocating for increased investment beyond zoning to street and safety improvements.

South CORE’s efforts resulted in more funding for transportation investments and allowed communities more time to weigh-in on the North Rainier rezone process.

The South CORE alliance represents multiracial and ethnic communities rooted in South Seattle and South King County who believe that in order for transit oriented development to result in racial justice, social equity must be at the center of all planning decisions.

While the delayed timeline was not South CORE’s aim, they will use the time to encourage City Council to improve transit service, accessibility and safety and access to good jobs around the station area.

The testimony submitted in August maintained that:

“Overall, we believe the proposed zoning changes fit with the long-term vision for the North Rainier/Mt. Baker area. We are encouraged by the City’s decision to use the Seattle mixed zone to retain light industrial businesses in Southeast Seattle, such as the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company.  Maintaining and growing living wage jobs close to transit and urban areas is critical to ensuring communities of color and working families can afford to live in transit rich neighborhoods and benefit from new investment.

Passing this rezone is only the first step to building an equitable transit-oriented neighborhood. While the proposed rezone sets the boundaries for how North Rainier/Mount Baker will develop, the North Rainier/Mt. Baker area needs a significant amount of investment beyond zoning before our City’s vision for a thriving, and diverse community can be realized.”

Click here to read the full comments.

Just last week the final tally came in on SeaTac’s proposition 1.  The “ayes” have it.

So the sky must be falling, right?  Afterall, opponents of the biggest campaign the City of SeaTac has ever seen have been claiming for months that businesses would close shop, employees would lose their jobs, and airlines would move their business away from SeaTac.

Wrong. Despite these claims, business appears to be booming at SeaTac airport.

Rather than moving business away from SeaTac, some are making new investments.  In fact, Delta Airlines is making moves to expand business at SeaTac airport.  On election day, with a pending victory for living wages at SeaTac Airport, Delta Airlines announced, their plans to expand the Seattle market by adding 8 new daily non-stop flights, and a summer seasonal flight to Alaska. Demonstrating that with living wages, SeaTac Airport will grow as an international hub.

Are we seeing businesses close inside the airport?  Well, it looks like the opposite is happening for concessionaires inside the airport.  Just last week, the Port of Seattle announced that they are opening 4 new duty free stores, which plan to hire roughly 85 new employees.

Currently, Proposition 1 will cover roughly 6300 workers, but it looks like with these new shops and expanded flights, there will be even more living wage jobs at SeaTac Airport.

Now that Proposition 1 has passed, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of who will see a wage boost and better standards.  In our previous post, we highlighted that only companies that meet a size and employee threshold are covered.  Over the past nine months, we have obtained data on employer sizes from the Port of Seattle, Hoovers, King County property data, the Puget Sound Book of Lists and union organizers to compile our estimates of who is covered.  Below you’ll find our projected list of workplaces where living wage requirements should kick in on January 1^st, 2014.

Note that the list is meant to be a guide, not a definitive answer to whether a particular company is covered or not.  For example, we may over-estimated employment for firms on the edge of Proposition 1’s threshold, and included them when they are not actually covered. Or companies may have grown or shrunk since we made our estimate.  But, most of the employers listed below are well above the thresholds and we are confident that they are covered. (The lists below are ordered by largest to smallest.)

Rental Car Agencies (and their contractors)

There are approximately 16 rental car agencies (and companies contracted to provide those agencies services) operating in SeaTac.  Below are seven that we estimate have more than 100 vehicles and 25 or more workers in SeaTac.

National

Hertz

Golden Gate of Orlando

GCA Services Group

Avis Budget Group

Enterprise Rent a Car

Advantage

Hotels

Hotels or motels with over 100 rooms and more than 30 non-managerial employees will be covered by Proposition 1.  Below are two lists – one for hotels that we project meet both criteria and one for hotels that meet the room requirement but may or may not meet the employee threshold.

The following hotels are primarily the big ones on International Blvd, near SeaTac Airport.  We know the number of rooms at each hotel from King County Assessor’s information.  From other analysis, we estimate that they all have 30 or more employees.

Hotel	Rooms
DoubleTree Hilton	850
Marriott	459
Hilton Seattle Airport	396
Holiday Inn	260
Clarion Hotel	214
Radisson	204
Red Lion	144
Cedar Brook Lodge	102
Hampton Inn	218
Holiday Inn Express	171
Ramada	156

The hotels below meet the room number requirement, but may or may not meet the 30 worker threshold.  We cannot confirm that these are covered by Prop 1 and did not include them in our prior estimates of the number of firms covered or workers affected.

Hotel	Rooms
Sleep Inn	105
Fairfield Inn	147
Red Roof Inn	152
La Quita Inn	143
Coast Gateway	143
Best Western	140
Hampton Inn 2	130
Comfort Inn	119
Super 8	119
Motel 6	109
Quality Inn	104

On-Airport Transportation Employers

There are hundreds of businesses that do business at the airport:  however, only a relatively small number related to air travel passengers and cargo are specifically covered by the initiative.   The list below includes companies that provide services defined in Proposition 1 and which we estimate have 25 or more employees at Sea-Tac Airport.

Menzies Aviation Group

Federal Express Corp

Bags Inc

Airserv

DAL Global Services

Swissport US

Flight Services & Systems

Huntleigh/ICTS

Prime Flight

Aircraft Service Intl

Worldwide Flt Svcs

Intergrated Airline SVCS

World Service Co

Prospect

Swissport Cargo SVCS

InterCruises

Aviation Safeguards

Hanjin Global

Swissport Fueling Inc

Matheson Postal SVCS

Menzies Aviation Cargo

Note that we estimated the size of these on-airport companies based on Port of Seattle security badge data obtained in January 2013.

Institutional Food Service or Retail Employers

These employers provide food service in public facilities, corporate cafeterias and meeting facilities.    The list below includes companies operating at Sea-Tac Airport that we estimate have a minimum of ten or more non-managerial or non-supervisory employees.  Note that many individual stores at Sea-Tac Airport are actually operated by HMS Host and Hudson News Group, so will not show up on the list.  These two companies account for nearly two-thirds of all workers in this category.

HMS Host

Hudson News Group

Concourse Concessions LLC

Concessions Intl

Filo Foods LLC

Massage Bar Inc

Latrelles Express Inc

Qdoba Rest Company

Beechers

Food Systems Unlimited

VIP Hospitality

Fireworks LLC

Butter London

SeaTac Bar Group

Ivars Inc

Pallino Pastaria

Sodexo Magin

Exofficio

Dilettantes Mocha Bar

Travelex Currency Services

Body Shop

Vino Volo

In a recent Seattle Times article, the co-owners of an airport Quiznos also projected that their company will hiring more workers and may be covered soon.

Parking Lots and Garages

Parking lots and garages with over 100 spaces and over 25 employees are covered by the initiative.  (This excludes parking lots at stores and smaller parking garages in the city of SeaTac.)  We estimate that three parking companies, operating six facilities, meet both the employee and the employer threshold.  Other parking lots in SeaTac have more than 100 spaces, but likely fewer than 25 employees.

Doug Fox Airport Parking

Masterpark

Wally Park

Ground Transportation/Shuttle Firms

Shuttle and bus service providers that own ten or more shuttles, vans and busses, and employ more than 25 non-managerial employees in SeaTac are covered by Proposition 1. Although many companies run shuttle services to the airport, from around the Puget Sound and from Eastern Washington, only one operates primarily in King County – Shuttle Express.  (Other companies may or may not be covered based on how their fleet and number of employees are counted.)