Meeting the Moment with the Seattle Shield Initiative

Washington workers have shown the rest of the country time and again that we believe in fair pay, safe workplaces, and uplifting fair businesses – and when we fight for those things, we win. 

That is under threat, not because we are failing, but because the city is grappling with a huge budget deficit. This shortfall is occurring at the same time as the federal government recklessly slashes funding for programs that families need to survive, like food banks, housing assistance, and workers’ rights enforcement. Working Washington stands in strong support of the Seattle Shield Initiative by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, which would sustain funding for labor standards enforcement while providing relief for small businesses by making the wealthiest corporations in the city pay more of what they owe.

In Washington, we’re used to fighting back against our homegrown billion-dollar corporations like Amazon and Boeing and Microsoft, but now the United States is under the thumb of billionaires and wealthy corporations too. The billionaires in charge of the corporations are pulling the strings from the shadows and in some cases calling the shots in plain view to disrupt our safety and take from our communities, and those funding cuts threaten everything we fought for. They’re also using their shadowy influence to try to push harmful budget cuts while giving themselves huge tax breaks.

Seattle is rejecting that path and showing the leadership we should expect from our elected officials at every level of government. We’re showing the rest of the country that leaders don’t need to undermine workers’ rights in order to support small businesses and help them thrive. Fairness is good for workers and fairness is good for business. We’re choosing to lay the foundation for a stronger local economy that allows us all to flourish.

Councilmember Rinck and a coalition of workers, housing advocates, and small employers are championing the Seattle Shield Initiative to raise taxes on the wealthiest corporations that will generate $90 million for our region’s services and programs that workers rely on. This includes making sure we have the resources to fight wage theft and other workplace abuses – abuses that weaken our economy and make it harder for Seattle’s working families to stay housed and fed.  

By funding the Office of Labor Standards, we’ll make sure workers get the money we are owed. We’ll continue to put millions of dollars back in the hands of Seattle workers, and we’ll be able to spend that money right here at home – supporting our local businesses and growing our city’s economy. OLS ensures that we all have real protections on the job and that employers have what they need, particularly high-road employers who are harmed when bad bosses try to cheat workers and the system.

This proposal does what we’ve always said a fair economy should do. It helps both workers and small businesses. It eases the pressure on small businesses while making sure the biggest and wealthiest corporations in the city pay what they owe. We ensure sustained funding for workers’ rights enforcement, uplift small businesses, and protect our city at a time when we are under threat from the far-right regime in the White House.

Let’s make sure the Seattle City Council votes to approve the Seattle Shield proposal for the November ballot where Seattle workers can use our power to pass it into law.

Seattle: no matter where you live in the city, who you are, how much you make, or how long you’ve been here – you have the chance to help workers and small business owners by making the wealthiest employers here contribute what they owe us. Join us in telling our councilmembers to approve the Seattle Shield proposal. Sign up to our mailing list to find out how, and find us on socials at Working Washington on all platforms to connect with other Seattleites in the fight.

Seattle Shield can protect what matters, but it's only a strong first step toward fairness. We need to keep fighting for the bold and ongoing investments that Seattle needs and we do that pursuing more progressive revenue to fund it.