Some Airport Workers Still Earn Less Than Minimum Wage, as SeaTac Law Leaves a Confusing Patchwork

The City of SeaTac’s 2013 “living wage” ordinance included what looked like a straightforward requirement: a first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage for all. At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, that’s not exactly the way it’s panned out.

Yes, new employees serving hamburgers at the McDonald’s on the airport concourse start at the current minimum, by now bumped up by annual cost-of-living increases to $15.64 per hour. And in a victory for organized labor, which spearheaded the drive for the ordinance, many more workers are now unionized.

Alaska Airlines, which led a long, costly and unsuccessful fight against the living-wage measure, subsequently reversed its 2005 decision to outsource its baggage handling. Last May, it took the work back from nonunion vendor Menzies Aviation and gave the contract to an Alaska subsidiary, McGee Air Services, with employees represented by the Machinists union.

But that’s where things get confusing.