Opinion ID: 2828903
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Minimum Wage Act, RCW 49.46.120

Text: The majority offers an independent reason why the city of SeaTac can apply Proposition 1 at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It believes the Minimum Wage Act, RCW 49.46.120, authorizes the ordinance to apply there. See majority at 17-19. No doubt, state law could authorize a city in which an airport is located to apply its ordinances at the airport. The Revised Airports Act makes this clear: the municipality controlling and operating an airport has exclusive jurisdiction and control of the airport, subject to federal and state laws, rules, and regulations. RCW 14.08.330 (emphasis added). The majority relies on the Minimum Wage Act's provisiOn that any applicable federal, state, or local law or ordinance that is more favorable to employees than state law remains effective. RCW 49.46.120. The majority reasons: [S]tate law sets the minimum wage in any given location at the most favorable level to the employee whether by federal, state, or local law .... The Port of Seattle's regulatory authority over the airport is subordinate to all state laws, including state minimum wage law, that require it to comply with local minimum wage laws. Under Filo Foods's reading, the two statutes would be inconsistent with one another. RCW 46.46.120 mandates that the laws in any given location most favorable to the employee shall be in f-ull force and effect. That provision would be meaningless if the Port of Seattle could trump such laws in airports it controls. RCW 49.46.120 does not carve out an exception for airports, and RCW 14.08.330 does not contain any language indicating that the Port of Seattle's jurisdiction and control over the airport includes the power to trump local minimum wage laws. As state above, -9- Fila Foods, LLC, et al. v. City of SeaTac, et al., 89723-9 (Stephens, J. Dissent) that provision precludes the city of SeaTac only from interfering with the operations of an airport. The ordinance does not do so. Majority at 18-19. This line of reasoning takes down an argument no one is making. No one believes the Port of Seattle can trump the most employeefriendly applicable law. The Minimum Wage Act provides that the most employee-friendly applicable . .. local law governs. RCW 49.46.120 (emphasis added). It does not, as the majority believes, set[] the minimum wage in any given location at the most favorable level to the employee whether by federal, state, or local law. Majority at 18 (emphasis added). Nor is the majority justified in its assumption that the relevant given location includes the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Instead, the Minimum Wage Act expressly leaves the question of an ordinance's applicability for other cases. And this case asks whether Proposition 1 applies at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in light of RCW 14.08.330's apparent shield against its application there. To say that the Minimum Wage Act determines that Proposition 1 is an applicable ... local law, RCW 49.46.120, at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is to assume the very conclusion we are debating. For that reason, the Minimum Wage Act does not aid our analysis.