Several companies that provide transportation and hospitality services at or near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport have agreed to settle back-pay lawsuits alleging that they ignored the nation's first USD 15 minimum wage law after it took effect, deals that will put more than USD 12 million in the pockets of their current and former workers.
The cases are among about two dozen filed against businesses that include airport staffing firms, rental car agencies, hotels and parking lots in SeaTac, where the airport is located.
Since the city passed the nation's first USD 15-an-hour minimum wage law in 2013, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC and other cities have followed.
Many employers questioned the law's validity and declined to immediately follow it.
The state Supreme Court upheld the measure a year ago in a 5-4 ruling, and attorneys for the workers began filing lawsuits seeking back pay for the roughly two years that the companies failed to pay USD 15 an hour.
Some businesses began paying the minimum wage following the ruling, but argued that it wasn't clear that they were required to fork over the retroactive pay.
"Whenever you pass a labor law, you need it to be enforced for it to be real for the workers," said Nicole Vallestero Keenan, who worked on the SeaTac minimum wage campaign and now is the executive director of the Seattle-based Fair Works Center, a nonprofit that works on enforcing labor laws.
"If you're living paycheck to paycheck and you receive USD 10,000 in back wages that are owed to you, that can be an enormous factor in changing one's life."
The largest known settlement so far comes from Menzies Aviation, which has provided baggage-handlers and ramp workers at Sea-Tac for Alaska Airlines since 2005, when the airline locked out more than 480 better-paid union workers.
Menzies, which operates in 31 countries and also provides workers for British Airways at Sea-Tac, has agreed to pay nearly USD 8.2 million to settle a lawsuit on behalf of 738 past and current workers, with each receiving an average payout of just under USD 10,000 after attorneys' fees, court documents say.
Most of the workers made USD 12 an hour instead of USD 15. A spokesman for Menzies declined to comment on the settlement, which still needs court approval.
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