AN ORDINANCE relating to employment; ending the hazard pay requirement for additional compensation for grocery employees working in the unincorporated area of King County; and amending Ordinance 19247, Section 14.
Thank you. By your vote, we have moved a motion 2021 for 16 the full council without recommendation. And we will expedite that to next Tuesday's full council meeting. That takes us to item eight on our agenda. I want to thank everybody for sticking with us. And this is ordinance 2021 to 90, which would end the current requirement for grocery stores in unincorporated King County that meet certain requirements to provide hazard pay to their workers. Very pregnant from council social staff will provide the staff reports is please go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, I'm Mary Bergeron from the council staff. And the materials for this item begin on page 72 of your packet. Back in March, the Council enacted our King County enacted Ordinance 19247, which, as you noted, Mr. Chair, required hazard pay for grocery workers in. Large. Stores in unincorporated King County. That ordinance stated that the hazard pay would expire upon the expiration of the executive's proclamation of emergency or at such time as the Council, deemed it appropriate to take other action in this ordinance before you proposed ordinance 2020 10290 would amend that earlier ordinance to add additional findings to the legislation about the vaccination progress that has been made in King County and then add a termination date. And I will note that there is an amendment in your packet on page 80 which would add additional findings about recent vaccination progress, including the ability of children from ages five up to be vaccinated and would incorporate two dates into the legislation January 10th, 2022 or the expiration date for the hazard pay, and then January 10th, 2025, three years later for when recordkeeping requirements for hazard pay would end. That concludes my report. Mr. Chair. Other comments? Questions. Okay, colleagues. Seem that to entertain emotion. Councilmember Barghouti. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move approval of proposed ordinance 2020 10290 with a do passed recommendation, and I commend the amendment as well. Like Councilmember Banducci amended, we're going to do pass recommendation most in 2021 to 90. Councilmember Bellucci Passing of Amendment one. Amendment one on page 80 of our meeting package before it starts. Member Bellucci Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think our members are keenly aware that we adopted this hazard pay earlier in the pandemic at a time when grocery workers were in the private sector, some of the most critical workers that never, ever got to step away or work from home or do any of the things that that many of us could do to protect themselves because they had to supply us with our food. Much has changed since then. As we heard earlier, some of the jurisdictions, there were a handful that adopted this have already sunset or rescinded their hazard pay. I understand the city of Seattle, which is, I think the largest other jurisdiction that has this now has got a similar action working its way through their legislative process to sunset primarily on the justification that we vaccinations are in a very different place. Mask compliance remains good. We seem to have gotten through the Delta wave, but all, most to all businesses are now open in public. And so the justification for having this special requirement for one one sector doesn't seem appropriate any longer. That doesn't mean that there isn't something to be done, but it would probably be a lot broader than what we have now. And finally, we have kept in close touch with the representatives of the CW who were key advocates for this provision on behalf of their members. They understand we're taking this up. They have not raised any objections to us doing so, and they've been very helpful, informative and cooperative as we move to sunset this at an appropriate time. So I would urge our support at this time. I really am glad we did this. I am glad that that this county council stood up for the folks who are some of the most vulnerable and the most important and often not very well respected for the jobs they do. But I do believe it's time and we're ready to move on. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have the Amendment one before us for the discussion. Well. Dombrowski That's number ten. Musky Thanks. Mr.. I think I'm still comfortable with the original legislation that had this Concur as the primary decider with the declaration of the emergency. That was the basis on which I thought it made sense to provide this. And so I understand different views may differ on that, but I think that it's why I asked earlier about the status of our local emergency order. And and I think this is these folks are doing essential work on the on the front lines. And I think from my view, the policy is is grounded in that, not necessarily from any one particular advocacy group. So I'll be a gentle note today. A further discussion was my rapid growth. I also wanted to get some clarity about where we are in the process here in terms this is. And Amendment two, or is this comment on final passage? This is Amendment one is before us. I'll reserve my comments for final passage. Thank you and that others in favor of amendment one piece by Bible saying I. II and. Those are both way under the I's habit. The amendment is adopted. We have a motion 2021 to 90 as amended before us. Further discussion. Up the Grove. House member up to no. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Speaking in favor. I want the first thing I want to say is I'm really proud of us as a council for what we have done to support employees at a time when the rest of the economy was shut down and they were essentially required or needed to perform a function of ensuring that people could get food at a time of the lockdown. This was certainly never intended to be permanent, and I think that's evident by the other other jurisdictions that are closing it down. Things have changed significantly. All parts of the economy are open now. And I'm very sympathetic to a colleague who spoke previously the results. I'm just I think there's a chance that that declaration of emergency could be extended as long as possible due to probably the state's interest in obtaining federal funds. And. WHEREAS, the actual. A threat facing those workers relative to the rest of the economy, I think has been reduced dramatically. So I'm comfortable using a new date specific criteria. Generally speaking, I would like to see wages keep up with inflation. And but I don't think it'd be appropriate to use a backdoor tool. If we want to do that, then we ought to take up a minimum wage ordinance that applies to not just groceries, but to other businesses. And we have some challenges with that given our we only have unincorporated areas. So I'm I think it's the right thing to do and happy to support it today. Amber That's Number Lambert. Thank you. I'd like to ask a question and I've been going back and forth on the the amendment we just passed. I understood all but the last word. And I'm trying to figure this out, because how does the vaccination. Rate. Of five year olds have to do with this? And why is that record keeping going on for three more years separately? Well, I think public health is already doing that. So could you explain to me the effect statement on the attachment to the last page of our of our package? Thank you. Council member. So the recordkeeping requirement was in the original ordinance, and it's not about vaccination rates, but it's rather for the employers to provide to have records available on hazard pay that was paid. And that requirement in the original ordinance was to extend for three years beyond the termination of the hazard pay. And so the dates in the amendment would do that. They'd set the date for the hazard pay to end and then a date three years later when record keeping or the records would no longer be required to be kept. In terms of the findings about the vaccination, as Councilmember Balducci, who sponsored this legislation, have noted back in March when the council adopted the legislation originally there were a number of findings in the legislation about the fact that at that point, only high risk and older adults were eligible to be vaccinated, meaning that most of the people affected by this ordinance and their families were not able to be vaccinated at that time. Since then, all adults and then ages 12 and up and then ages five and up have been eligible to be vaccinated. And as those facts are material to the health and safety of the workers, those were included in. Findings in this new ordinance. So, Mr. Chair, may I follow up on that? Oh, yes. They do. So who does this? Does public health do this? Or does the grocery workers do this? Who is. Doing this? So Councilmember, unlike in the city of Seattle, which has an Office of Labor Standards which enforced their hazard pay requirement, King County does not have an enforcement mechanism. And so the original ordinance that the county enacted in March was based on essentially what is a private right of action. Where a grocery worker who. Felt that they were entitled to hazard pay because of where they worked and what they did but was not receiving it, had the ability to take action to secure that pay. The recordkeeping is a requirement of the private companies. So it's not something that public health would be doing. So this is a little troubling. So I realize that it was already three years, you know, but. We're working on it. I mean, we have the opportunity to discuss it. You know, we are actually extending from September 30th, 2024 to January 10th, 2025. I'm wondering if if we really need to be doing it for that long as putting in that kind of extra paperwork on a individual business is burdensome. So I just want to throw that out. That wasn't what I heard in the briefing I hadn't heard. That was I was reading and I was like, We're aware of this. So anyway, I throw that out for the discussion of the body to see if we want to change that date by oral amendment. Mr. Chair. Councilmember Banducci. So the general rationale behind requiring some record keeping is that if there is any dispute as to whether a particular employer paid the required the legally required wages during that period of time, that dispute might not ripen for some period of time. And that's why we have a statute of limitation and all those sorts of thing. So I don't I think that employers routinely keep and retain records of the wages that they pay the better for lots of good reasons. But I am very happy to if we if we move this forward to final two to council, I'm very happy to do a little bit of digging as the sponsor of both the the original ordinance and the sunset to do a little digging and make sure that there's a good rationale and that it's not unduly burdensome. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think we should at least know that. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Councilmember Baldacci, just to chime into the conversation I'm not afraid of. I've been expecting employers to maintain records. They already have to ensure compliance. Other other discussion. Would you please call them all? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Councilmember Banducci, I. Councilmember Dombrowski. Oh. Councilmember Dunn. I. Council member Wells. I remember I. Council member of the group I. Councilmember one right there. Something in personal life. I. Mr. Chair. Oh. Mr. Chair, the vote is seven. I Council Member DEMBOSKY both new and Council member one my third excused thank you. By your vote we have given a deposit recommendation to ordinance 2021 to 90 as amended. We will send that to full council on regular course of business on the regular agenda. And in a moment, Madam, I will ask Mr. Chair, Councilmember Banducci, I'm. Sorry to jump in his regular comments, put it on the agenda on December 14th. Yes. Thank you. For this. My understanding, staff, is welcome to correct me, if I'm mistaken. That is correct, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Tracy. Hey, now, in a moment, I'll ask staff that we've missed any votes. And I know we did, so we. We'll be prepared for that. But even at this late hour, I just want to very quickly acknowledge that this is the last meeting of the committee of the whole for the year. We have done some outstanding work due to significant implementation plans, but large pieces of work. The county is undertaking the best targets for kids levy renewal and the health through housing implementation. Funds have come through committee. We've taken up our legislation regarding discharge of fireworks in unincorporated King County, a facial recognition down to charter amendments. But we've put it on the ballot and the voters have subsequently approved protections, legislation, hazard pay for grocery workers and no fewer than six appointments to the King County District Court as we have done all this work. I want to thank Marcus Steadman and Jade Tracey, our lead staff for the Committee of the Whole, for their work throughout the year. Anything I have done right and been well put forward because I'm very eager and happy to work to make sure that we were on top of things and with that. Are there votes we have missed that we can try to catch? Mr. Chair, council member John Boehner was excused for the votes on 2020 10290 and 2020 10416. Council Member But right now, are you able to unmute at this time and cast those votes? Not seeing or hearing him unmute. We know that he has the ability to record those votes for our remote operations bills to by email and by the end of the day. And with that, I do want to thank everyone for their work in the community throughout the year. Jake and Martha and I wish everyone a great holiday season end of the year. And with that, we are adjourned.