Workers rally at Federal Way mall, call for $15 minimum wage, paid sick leave

Published 1:22 pm Wednesday, November 11, 2015

“What do we say in Federal Way? Low pay is not OK!” rang out from a crowd of protesters just outside of Federal Way’s The Commons mall on Tuesday.

That was before they marched throughout the Commons and were kicked out by security around 11:30 a.m.

Organized by Working Washington, the group who launched the Seattle fast food strikes in 2013 for the $15 minimum wage, the rally was part of the statewide “It’s Our Time” day of action. Similar rallies took place in Seattle, Spokane, Yakima and Olympia as well as more than 250 locations nationwide.

Federal Way resident Alina Hizik, 23, has worked at her two jobs – Jack in the Box and Chevron – for about a year and shares the burden of paying rent with her brother. But she’s still left with nothing at the end of each month.

“You work hard but it’s not enough, you know? And it feels like you want that hard work to pay off,” Hizik said. “I figure if we as people make $15 minimum wage, we wouldn’t have to work two jobs.”

Hizik said she’s already struggling with expenses and bills now so paying for college isn’t something that seems doable, even though she hopes to go one day.

“I hope to make a change for everyone, not just me,” she said when asked why she was at the rally. “Unless you spend time in [our] shoes, a week, then you won’t truly understand.”

According to Working Washington, Federal Way has a declining Caucasian population despite the city’s 30 percent population increase since it was incorporated as a city 25 years ago. While Federal Way has a significant amount of low-income housing options, more than 25 percent of renters pay more than half of their incomes towards rent, the organization’s officials stated.

“Seven of the 10 most common occupations in Federal Way typically pay poverty-wages, and more than 10,000 people leave the city each day for work,” according to Working Washington’s website.

Those jobs include retail sales, customer service representatives, building and grounds cleaning and maintenance, laborers and material movers, cooks and food preparation workers, personal care and service workers.

Calvin Hurt, 19, said his three months working at the Federal Way McDonald’s has been good – he makes minimum wage – but he’s concerned about what will happen when he starts college in January.

“My opinion is $15 would be great for me, personally, because college isn’t cheap,” he said. “My parents, they don’t have money to pay for that. Scholarships don’t always come around and I just need it to support me and my brother. They all kind of depend on me because I’m the brains of the family.”

Hurt hopes to study business management, music and interpretation of Spanish and said a higher wage would alleviate worries about transportation to his classes in Tacoma, adding that bus routes aren’t always consistent.

“Federal Way is a really great place, a nice little town, but I feel like our prices and our minimum wage do not [equate] to each other. They’re not good, it will always not balance out because $9.47 will not pay a $700-$800 rent, bills, deposit fees or security. It’s just not happening here.”

The Commons mall is also a major employment center, with primarily low-wage retail jobs for national chain stores such as Sears, Target and Applebee’s, the organization states.

Mall general manager Charles Sullivan was outside on Tuesday trying to control the rally, but would not provide comment to the Mirror and instead referred staff to corporate communications, who also failed to respond by deadline.

“These workers want politicians to know that on the second Tuesday of November in the 2016 election, they’re going to be held accountable and we want a president and Congress people who support a $15 minimum wage,” said Chris Casquejl, a spokesman with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775, who represents 44,000 long-term care-workers in Washington and Montana. “It’s not just about the $15 minimum wage, it’s about getting paid sick time off, being able to take care of yourself when you can’t work and in the industry our workers work in, being able to know your schedule more than a day or two in advance.”

Casquejl said the working class has been under attack for decades but warns that the 64 million workers making less than $15 an hour will be a political force in the polls for the presidential election.

Working Washington officials state the priorities of 30th Legislative District representatives do not yet fully reflect the shifting local landscape. But say that wages, housing and other economic justice issues are of “growing importance to this community” and local public officials “should be careful to avoid being on the wrong side of super-majority support for good jobs in a place that so badly needs them — particularly somewhere, which is swinging and shifting as quickly as Federal Way.”

Legislative response

Rep. Linda Kochmar (R-Federal Way) said while she voted against the state’s effort to increase minimum wage to $12 an hour, she is not opposed to strengthening minimum wage.

“I have always thought that if you work hard and make a positive contribution to society, that you should have the opportunity to support yourself and your family,” she said in an email. “Every worker in Washington, regardless of their job title, deserves a pathway to making a living wage.”

Kochmar encourages employers to listen to the concerns of employees, but believes an increase in minimum wage would “only give a handful of people a raise and put the jobs of many more in jeopardy.”

“I’d rather work on solutions to fight for those whose jobs may be at risk if a higher minimum wage is mandated or if employers are forced to incur the costs and jump through bureaucratic hoops of mandatory paid sick leave for virtually all employers in the state,” she said.

She thinks improving the public education system so that people are better equipped to enter the workforce and get well-paying jobs or creating a “training wage” are better options. Protections for employers would have to be secured before she would support another wage increase, she said.

Rep. Carol Gregory (D-Federal Way) said the Legislature needs to address the people who are getting squeezed out of the middle class by increasing costs despite stagnating wages.

“We have an amazing ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ situation in Federal Way and people are probably not as aware,” Gregory said. “Poverty is very real here. You only have to look at school populations to see that. We don’t have a lot of industry that pays family wage jobs and, unfortunately, that causes people to drive out of the city to get a family wage job, which means money on gas, cars, etc.”

Gregory said it’s “pretty pathetic” what people have to live through and worries about young adults who graduate from college with degrees, yet are unable to find work and resort to working low wage jobs and relying on low-income housing because of it.

Sen. Mark Miloscia (R-Federal Way) said he’s supported raising the minimum wage and providing paid sick leave “long before it was popular.”

In winter 2015, Miloscia introduced a bill that slowly increases minimum wage throughout time, with no cap, but also addresses concerns from employers, as it links to profit and productivity.

“The problem with the $12 or $15 minimum wage is that we fight that and then it stays there and then OK, we’re going to fight it again eight years down the road?” Miloscia said. “Let’s raise it from $15 to $16 or $12 to $14, well then we fight it again? Let’s work on a bill that solves it for everybody and then we can deal with some of the other issues.”

Miloscia said he’s a big believer that the more people who can work and pay themselves, the less of a safety net they’ll need. By reducing the number of people on welfare, people will in turn reduce the size of government, he said.

But there’s a crisis on the other side of this issue that Miloscia says few people are talking about – affordable housing in King County, specifically Seattle.

“The gentrification and the insane rents and housing crisis there, no matter what we raise the minimum wage to, nobody can live there,” he said, adding that high rents push Seattle workers to South King County and makes traffic congestion horrific. “How can we deal with traffic congestion if we’re sending the poor and working class farther way and now they have to travel?”

While Miloscia has been a critic on Seattle’s push for rent control, he does believe there needs to be more oversight of the Growth Management Act, which says affordable housing should be available at all economic levels.

“Right now, it’s only doing it for those making $50,000 a year,” he said. “So, if you have to make $50,000 a year, what about the 40 percent of workers who don’t make that? Well, if the Growth Management Act was working right, they would force King County and Seattle government to expand the housing supply. The more supply you have, housing prices go down.”

Miloscia said Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s plan to have 20,000 units built throughout the next 10 years is not ambitious enough when there will be about 50,000 more jobs during that time.

“We’ll fall further behind,” he said. “If he said we’re going to build 200,000 more units, then maybe we can see housing prices go down.”