SEATTLE (Legal Newsline) – Grocery associations are suing the City of Seattle over an ordinance that would require stores to pay employees $4 more per hour as hazard pay during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Northwest Grocery Association and the Washington Food Industry Association filed their lawsuit Feb. 3 in Seattle federal court over a measure passed Jan. 25 by the Seattle City Council. The suit seeks a declaration that the ordinance is unconstitutional because it is preempted by federal law regulating collective bargaining and unfair labor practices.
It also claims the ordinance violates the equal protection and contracts clauses of the U.S. and Washington constitutions.
“In particular, the (National Labor Relations Act) preempts any and all state and local enactments that, by design or consequence, regulate or interfere with the then-existing balance of economic power between labor and management with respect to zones of activity that, under federal labor law, are intended to be left to the free play of economic forces,” Adam Belzberg and Vanessa Soriano Power of Stoel Rives wrote.
“Laws subject to NLRA preemption include laws that interfere with or attempt to regulate the economic tools available to labor or management during the course of collective bargaining or that otherwise interfere with the collective bargaining process, such as those that alter the parties’ rights and economic alternatives during collective bargaining, or the processes and procedures utilized for union organizing.”