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Seattle’s Department of Labor Standards (OLS) is taking public comment on a proposed rule change that would extend local minimum wage protections to disabled workers.
Currently, city and state law exempt from the minimum wage “individuals whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury,” as the Revised Code of Washington puts it. The proposed change to city rules would strike the “or physical or mental deficiency or injury” part, so that the exemption only applied to underage labor.
The proposed rule change was first recommended by the Seattle Commission for People with Disabilities in June, after a four month review of sub-minimum wage practices in consultation with Councilmember Lisa Herbold’s office and county and state officials. In a letter to the Mayor and City Council, the Commission reported that there are two active exemptions, one at the Ballard First Lutheran Church and another at the Town & Country Market in Ballard. Each pays one worker $11.01 per hour instead of $13, according to the letter.
However, there is also another, unauthorized practitioner in Seattle, according to the Commision’s letter: the Northwest Center, a nonprofit that job-places people with disabilities. The letter says the Northwest Center has 128 workers at subminimum wage. “The lowest-paid worker under this program in Seattle makes 36 cents an hour,” read the letter.