Tag Archives: labor

How SAM’s security guards won their first union contract

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SAAM

After a 12-day strike, the 60 or so guards at the Seattle Art Museum and Capitol Hill’s Seattle Asian Art Museum have secured a contract agreement. The deal, finalized last week, delivers a wage boost from $21.68 to $23.25 per hour and guarantees 4% annual raises from 2025 through 2027 — a hard-fought victory for workers determined to improve their livelihoods while safeguarding some of the city’s premier cultural institutions.

It is a small victory but an important win for a small group left out of protections for their peers that was able to organize — and win — at a smaller scale.

To get there, the security workers had to overcome reluctance from museum leadership — and decades-old labor law.

“There is a law that the union believes the museum exploited to avoid recognizing us under that umbrella union,” Tahlia Segura, a part-time Visitor Service Officer and teaching artist in the museum’s education department who serves as the union representative, said. Continue reading →

Cherry Street Coffee owner says Capitol Hill cafe closed for good after tangle with Sawant over minimum wage tip credit

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A small Seattle coffee chain has closed its Capitol Hill location amid an ongoing labor dispute with its workers backed by former Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant.

Cherry Street Coffee owner Ali Ghambari tells CHS he has reversed plans to reopen his E Pine cafe and is instead looking for a new tenant to take over the space and the lease.

CHS reported here as Ghambari said he planned to reopen the Capitol Hill coffee shop later this month after Sawant and Cherry Street workers held a one-day “strike” that temporarily shut down the four-location chain over demands for “a living wage, an end to workplace sexual harassment,” and, the group said, an end to Ghambari’s “petitioning to roll back Seattle’s historic minimum wage victory.” Continue reading →

SPOG deal approved as Seattle City Council approves big raises with a few accountability strings for its police officers

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No word, yet, on how the new deal will change the Seattle Police Officers Guild’s “Seattle Public Safety Index”

With reporting by Hannah Saunders

The Seattle City Council voted 8-1 Tuesday to approve a new contract agreement with the city’s police officer union that leaders including Mayor Bruce Harrell and Chief Adrian Diaz says will boost salaries and morale as the department struggles to hire more officers. Council members voting for the contract also said Tuesday the deal will adding limited new oversight resources and move more public safety work like handling automated traffic tickets and property damage to civilian teams outside the department to help focus officers on the city’s most serious crime needs.

Public Safety Committee chair Bob Kettle said prior to Tuesday’s vote the key to the contract is improving SPD staffing levels, and that the agreement shows a commitment to both SPD and improving public safety. Acknowledged that the contract is expensive and a challenge with the budget deficit, Kettle said Seattle cannot compete in the law enforcement labor market, then it cannot accomplish the goal of achieving public safety.

“This is not done. This will continue. This is an interim or partial agreement,” Kettle said. “I have high standards and high expectations for our police department.”

The deal retroactively covers 2021, 2022, and 2023 with a series of raises that will give officers an immediate 23% boost in pay. Continue reading →

City Council set for vote on new contract with Seattle’s cops

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Recruit Class 872 being sworn in (Image: SPD)

Despite complaints that the vote is being rushed without adequate public debate, the Seattle City Council is set to approve a new deal Tuesday afternoon with the city’s cops that will bring big raises, some new oversight, and more police work moved to “civilian resources.”

The meeting of the full council is set for 2 PM and includes a mandated opportunity for up to 20 minutes of public comment. Expect there to be demands for much more.

District 2’s Tammy Morales has called for the vote to be delayed.

“This contract with SPOG is an incredibly important vote about the future of police accountability and civilian public safety alternatives in Seattle,” Morales said in a statement. “The community deserves a chance to make their voice heard before we vote on it. We shouldn’t be rushing this.”

Council president and citywide representative Sara Nelson said this week the vote cannot be delayed, adding that it is urgent the city puts a new deal in place that she hopes will begin to address the city’s dwindling ranks of sworn officers. Continue reading →

May Day 2024 in Seattle: Workers’ rights rally and march from Westlake, CD refugee and UW protest camps, and plywood on the Capitol Hill Starbucks roastery

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For the second year in a row, the focus of workers’ rights and labor on May Day in Seattle will move out of the Central District and into the city’s downtown.

Organizations rallying and marching to mark the international day for workers are gathering Wednesday in Westlake Park, the El Comite activist group said:

This May 1st, we honor the historic struggles of workers around the world. Labor Day celebrates solidarity and the fight for justice, remembering the achievements and sacrifices of those who have fought for decent working conditions.
Date: May 1, 2024
Hora: 10:00 am
Location: Westlake Park – 401 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101
Join us in Seattle to march in honor of global solidarity for workers and immigrants to continue fighting for a world where all our rights are valued and respected.
Together let’s inspire change and respect for all workers and immigrants!

CHS reported last year on the move away from the traditional march from the Central District with a new route reversing the patterns with a downtown start.

Many groups are again planning to gather at the end of Wednesday’s march in the Central District’s Judkins Park. Continue reading →

Seattle’s new deal with cops: big raises, some new oversight, more police work moved to ‘civilian resources’

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Seattle has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with its police force that meets many of the goals on salary increases that advocates have said are necessary to help grow the Seattle Police Department’s ranks, adds increased oversight and accountability, and opens the door for City Hall to move more of its work around public safety like automated traffic tickets and property damage to teams outside the department.

Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the tentative agreement with the Seattle Police Officer Guild and the move of legislation covering the contract to the Seattle City Council.

“This agreement focuses on three key areas: improving police staffing and fair wages at a time when officer numbers are at a historic low; enhancing accountability measures to ensure allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated and discipline is appropriate; and expanding civilian response options to build a diversified safety system and create new efficiencies,” Harrell said in statement.

The deal retroactively covers 2021, 2022, and 2023 with a series of raises that will give officers an immediate 23% boost in pay. The Harrell administration said negotiations for 2024 “are ongoing with the assistance of a mediator appointed by the Public Employment Relations Commission” and suggested more reform measures “proposed by the City based on input from community partners and the federal judge overseeing the City’s Consent Decree with the Department of Justice” will be included in the final agreement. Continue reading →

Facing looming deficit, Seattle City Hall agrees on raises with employees — and a deal for higher pay for its cops

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(Image: City of Seattle)

The Seattle City Council approved new contracts Tuesday for more than 7,000 city workers across 16 different labor unions that will raise wages, catch up on back pay, and expand benefits.

But all eyes are on a deal that falls outside those bounds as details are emerging from an agreement between City Hall and the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

Under the agreements finalized by the council Tuesday, city employees will see a catch-up on raises with a retroactive 5% payout for last year, a 4% bump in 2024, a 2025 raise tied to the regional Consumer Price Index and gated between 2% and 4%. and, in 2026, raises of between 2% and 5% pegged to inflation, Crosscut reports. Continue reading →

Mayor to launch series of public safety forums to focus on Seattle’s ‘top issue’

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The CARE car — Seattle leaders hope to grow the city’s still tiny Community Assisted Response and Engagement effort (Image: City of Seattle)

Seattle leaders including Mayor Bruce Harrell and the new members of the Seattle City Council have promised a new focus on public safety in the city. Thursday night, Harrell will begin an initiative to address crime and street disorder in Seattle with a series of forums including meetings in each of the Seattle Police Department’s five precincts where the mayor says he is inviting the public to hear “his vision for creating a safer Seattle.”

“Public safety is not just our first charter responsibility as a City, it is the top issue for our community today. I look forward to meeting with neighbors to hear their concerns and ideas, and to share the actions we are taking,” Harrell said in Tuesday’s announcement of the Thursday night forum.

It’s not clear why the Harrell administration provided only a few days notice on the forum. In-person attendance will require registration. The forum will also be streamed live by the city.

Harrell said this week’s session will be followed by additional forums held across the city, one in each of SPD’s five precincts including the East Precinct covering Capitol Hill and the Central District. Continue reading →

The latest union shop on Broadway? Phoenix Comics workers organize for retail representation

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Broadway still might be a union street. After last spring’s celebration of ten successful years at 113 Broadway E, Phoenix Comics staff are kicking off the next ten having successfully formed a union represented by UFCW 3000.

Elise Oziel, one of Phoenix’s six staff members, told CHS the team began discussing the formation of a union last summer.

“We already like working here and we wanted it to stay affordable for us to work here,” Oziel said. “I think that even when you have a really small staff, the desire to join the union shows that your staff are invested in the business, because if we weren’t invested and we wanted to make more money, we would go somewhere else.”

Phoenix staff are hoping the union’s ability to negotiate contracts will lead to annual raises and benefits like paid time off, which they currently do not receive, Oziel said, adding that “future staff members would already be set up for success.”

The plans for representation come as the labor efforts at smaller Capitol Hill businesses have ebbed and flowed on the tides of larger union fights at chains like Starbucks. Not all labor efforts along Broadwa have come over coffee. CHS reported here in 2022 on the unionization efforts around workers at Broadway’s location of the Crossroads thriftstore chain. Meanwhile, one symbol of the effort to grow unionization at small businesses here changed direction last year. CHS reported here on the decision to decertify their union by workers at Broadway’s Glo’s Diner late last year.

For the ownership at Phoenix, the effort has been an education.

Nick Nazar, owner of Phoenix Comics, told CHS the staff gathered a meeting to talk with ownership in December where they provided Nazar with a letter expressing the desire to form a union.

“I was pretty shocked,” Nazar said. “I’ve heard about unions but I myself in the 20 years I’ve been working in retail, on either side of the management or rank-and-file employee, had never dealt with the process, so I had no experience. I was really kind of stunned. I was both flattered and a little scared.” Continue reading →

Carmelo’s Tacos set to move in where Starbucks moved out over ‘safety and security incidents’ on Broadway

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Someday, Starbucks may have to make amends with the National Labor Relations Board for closing down cafes across the country in its ongoing battle with union groups.

But any mandated reopenings around Capitol Hill are getting more complicated.

The corner of Broadway and Denny is moving on from the coffee giant’s labor tiff with plans for a neighborhood favorite to move in,

CHS has learned that Hillcrest Market-born Carmelo’s Tacos is making plans to open a new restaurant in the space formerly home to the Broadway and Denny Starbucks. Continue reading →