City Council member Cooper expresses frustration with slow movement on $20 minimum wage proposal
Olympia City Council member Jim Cooper said during a recent Finance Committee meeting that the community is mad at him for the lack of movement on a proposed citywide minimum wage increase and adoption of a Workers’ Bill of Rights.
He and Finance Committee chair Lisa Parshley, who is vacating her post after being elected to the state Legislature, requested that the council’s conversation on minimum wage and the Bill of Rights during the council’s Jan. 24-25 retreat specifically address next steps for adopting the proposal, and not for it to get lost in the shuffle.
The Olympia City Council formally discussed the minimum wage and Workers’ Bill of Rights proposal on Oct. 22. The proposal includes raising the minimum wage to $20.29 with inflation. That amount is the standard King County has set for large employers, and it’s scheduled to rise with inflation there every year.
The council decided in October it would postpone any further discussion of a $20.29 minimum wage and adoption of a Workers’ Bill of Rights until its retreat. Mayor Dontae Payne said the council needs more time to figure out the best way to engage the public on the issue, after the Finance Committee originally set a 90-day exploratory period on the plan and the city received an unprecedented amount of feedback from the public.
Cooper originally expressed frustration about the process during the October meeting, saying he had expected the council to have a process figured out by then.
“My frustration is actually about the desire for the work that the committee is asking for to happen sooner,” he said. “This conversation started in our committee live on Sept. 16, and the only thing that came out of it was an engagement plan for 90 days around minimum wage and separate a conversation about all of the Workers’ Bill of Rights.”
Parshley told Stacey Ray, director of Strategic Planning and Performance, during the Dec. 9 meeting she wants the proposal to stay a priority and not get lost next year. Ray said it will have to be brought to the council’s retreat as a budget and staffing issue.
Cooper said he is struggling with the timeline, and he wants to ensure the retreat covers exactly what the council is going to do, not that they’re going to do something nebulous.
He said a majority of the city council wants to move forward with the proposal, and a minority has held it up for a future work plan.
Ray said she did put together an approach that could support the conversation Cooper’s looking for, but it’s still attached to the council’s work plan budget conversation.
Cooper said a work plan for a path forward should already have been approved. He said the community is mad at him for the delay.
“I’m not trying to put words in my committee’s mouth, but I think we want the retreat agenda item to be about what we would do to engage the community around getting to a prospective policy,” he said. “That’s the finance committee recommendation. And so can you (Ray), if everybody agrees, pass that along to the City Manager and the agenda writer for the retreat, because we’re going to be 150 days from a request with no response to the community.”
Parshley made mention that she, Cooper and Clark Gilman, are more than willing to have more conversations about the proposal and how to approach it until Dec. 31. After that, Cooper and Gilman will be leading conversations with city staff.
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