[caption id=”attachment_85066″ align=”aligncenter” width=”1200″] Joshua Trujillo/AP
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A group of Seattle area businesses have successfully taken the first step toward repealing the city’s new $15 an hour minimum wage bill, gathering nearly 20,000 signatures on a petition to take the bill to a popular vote.
Forward Seattle, a group that represents restaurants, merchants and other businesses, submitted a petition with 19,500 signatures last Wednesday to Seattle City Hall in favor of the ballot referendum. As a result, the bill, which was approved by the city council earlier this year, would have the chance to come before voters in November. Voters would decide whether or not to keep the increased minimum wage or to repeal it.
Seattle is one of several cities part a nationwide push by Democrats to raise minimum wages. The $15 an hour rate makes Seattle’s minimum wage the highest in the country.
Under the current terms, businesses with fewer than 500 workers must raise wages to the $15 mark in the next seven years, an increase of more than 60 percent from Seattle’s current minimum wage of $9.32 an hour. Larger businesses must meet that level within three years, or four years if they provide health insurance. These drastic changes have some businesses concerned that the wage hike might force them to lay off workers, raise prices, or shutter.
Forward Seattle needed 16,510 signatures to make the ballot, Fox News reported. Now the petition just must be verified by the city and the King County election office.
Forward Seattle Co-Chair Angela Cough said the validated signature count will likely be close because a typical margin of error on this type of petition is as high as 3,000 names.
“We’ll keep a list of every challenged signature and fight,” she told Fox News. “It’s going to be very, very close.”
Forward Seattle faces another challenge thanks to Yes for Seattle, a group of wage hike supporters. Yes for Seattle submitted a complaint to local prosecutors accusing Forward Seattle signature gatherers of lying while passing out the petition. No further details on this complaint were available Monday.
