Good afternoon.
Thank you for being here, everybody.
Pretty excited about what we're going to talk about a little bit here.
And Council Member Teresa Mosqueda will follow me, and we'll have some Q&A as well.
I thought she was going to stand by us.
We had it all scripted out.
Yeah, there you go.
There you go.
And you got a smile on your face.
Here we go.
Here we go.
So let's talk about a healthy workforce for the moment.
And we have a lot of things to give, because people not only put their time and effort into it, I think they put their heart in this kind of work.
So we know what a healthy workforce does.
It builds a healthy community.
And at the end of the day, I think that's what we all strive for.
And now I lost the vote of the children in one fell swoop.
We also know that because of the work that the City of Seattle and many community advocates and health advocates have done, that we've had employees across Seattle having access to paid and sick leave, paid sick and safe time since 2012. And then when we started looking about, you know, we're not out of this pandemic yet, but we started looking at policies that we needed to put in place at the end of COVID as we start to hopefully migrate toward better times.
We looked at what was under the state of emergency COVID-19 state of emergency and we realized unfortunately many workers were set up to lose very important protections.
Protections that many of us perhaps maybe even take for granted and we just fundamentally believe and I know I'm preaching to the choir but we just fundamentally believe no one should have to have that choice between a sick day for themselves or caring for the families, or caring for themselves, or having to make rent.
These are not decisions any human being should have to make.
So we think that we looked at what the gig workers have done, the different folks that have stepped up during some of the most challenging times.
And they were such an incredible part of our economy, of our workforce.
And so we wanted to have some focused efforts on that particular segment.
And so this legislation we'll sign today I didn't know it was that thick.
I got all those pins up there.
It must be thicker than I thought.
So this legislation I'm very excited to sign ensures the rights of our app-based workers to remain protected and that our communities remain safe and healthy.
I want to thank Karim Levitas and the OLS and the OLS teammates of Karim's.
I certainly want to thank the Director Steve Marchese.
But we're, in my administration, we try not to give the people up top the credit because We know who did the real work.
And certainly Breonna Thomas from our team, leading our team on this work.
It was the labor advocates and the platforms and communities that talked about this.
And certainly, my dear friend, Council Member Mosqueda, for sponsoring legislation, making sure, again, we want to say it's city hall.
We want to say that all voices are heard.
Now, sometimes, how we deal with disagreements really defines the culture we will have.
And it's OK to disagree, as I try to say that to my wife of 30 years when we argue.
It's OK to disagree.
But at the end of the day, let's try to arrive at a good place.
And I really appreciate, I think Council Member Muscata's unique skill for always getting us to a good place.
So thank you for that.
And most importantly, thank you to the workers.
The workers behind this legislation, the workers who did the work for all the advocates for this permanent version of these most important protected rights.
So having said that, it's absolutely my honor to pass it on to my teammate, Council Member Mosqueda, for a few brief remarks.
Council Member Mosqueda.
Well folks, I want to thank you all for being here to celebrate this historic moment.
And as I look out at the audience, the mayor is absolutely right.
The folks who made this legislation, this historic win possible, you're sitting right here in this room.
I want to thank you for your tenacity, the willingness to bring forward your stories, the importance of lifting up how critical paid sick and safe leave was, not just during the pandemic.
but in your ongoing commitments to make sure that you can feed your family, keep a roof over your head, stay healthy yourself, and practice best practices when it comes to public health.
You are doing the critical work on the front line of connecting our communities, of feeding families, of getting folks back and forth to where they need to be, and our city needs to be taking care of you like you've cared for our families.
This is a matter of public health.
This is a matter of investing in labor protections.
This is a matter of doing what's right and learning from what the pandemic has taught us anything.
It is that we need to protect workers on the front line, protect their health because your health is good for the population's health.
Today, we again in the city of Seattle are making history.
11 years ago, we passed paid sick and safe leave into the statute of this city, one of the first cities in the nation to provide paid sick and safe leave.
And that took off across the country.
We led then, and we've led now in the midst of the pandemic.
the beginning of the pandemic we amended paid sick and safe leave and said we want to be able to use safe leave for the times when it is no longer safe for our kiddos to go to daycare or schools or for our loved ones to be in long-term care facilities.
We amended paid sick and safe leave so that folks could use safe leave for moments of public health crisis like the pandemic.
And immediately, in 2020, with your support, we acted with urgency to put into statute a temporary protection to make sure that all gig workers had access to paid sick and safe leave.
That was historic then.
But we knew that the declared state of emergency would end.
And we knew then it would be important for us to have an opportunity to extend it.
And that is why we built in six months extension for after the declared state of emergency was over to give us the chance to do what we're doing right now.
And it has been made possible for us to extend this protection for paid sick and safe leave, thanks to the incredible partnership of Mayor Harrell and your administration to Brianna Thomas, who's standing behind me, who's the labor lead and labor liaison and lead on this policy.
It's been made possible because Sejal Parikh, chief of staff in my office who leads on labor, has been working with you over the last six years in my office and took immediate action in partnership with the mayor's office and in deep collaboration with the Office of Labor Standards, Director Marchesi behind me, and also Mr. Levitas, to make sure that we listen to you, the workers across this city, who said we should not go a day without access to paid sick and safe leave, and let's expand it to all of the gig economy workers who will soon be covered under the pay up legislation in January next year.
We led 11 years ago, we led at the beginning of the pandemic, and we are leading today by putting paid sick and safe leave into the law of Seattle.
I'm thrilled to be able to celebrate this with you, and I know how critically important it is, not just for workers on the front line, but for the entire health and the population's health of our community.
Sejal just earlier this week had to take paid sick leave to care for her daughter who needed emergency care.
The beginning of the month when I was supposed to introduce this legislation in partnership with the mayor and our committee, I had to take paid sick leave because of COVID.
And two weeks later, I got the flu.
The pandemic is not over.
The ongoing communicable illnesses are not going to leave our community.
And if anything, we know that because of increased migration changes across our country and across our globe, the changes to the climate due to global warming, we need to be prepared for how these illnesses may be more prevalent in our community.
And being prepared means taking care of our workforce.
So I want to thank the incredible leadership of you all in this room for making today another day where the City of Seattle gets to be proud that we are leading on labor standards and investing in our community's health.
Credible partnership from folks like Drive Forward, Working Washington, UFCW 3000, Teamsters 117, and remembering to center the policy on those who've had the lived experience of being on the front line.
You're not just essential during the pandemic, you are essential for the growing gig economy in our community and the way in which the gig economy will continue to be present in making our city run.
We thank you for all that you've done and we will commit to continue to expand this work in the future.
Thank you very much Mr. Mayor for signing this legislation and all of your partnership.
My name is Tedessa Mesquite and I approve that message.
Alright you guys, if you want to get in a picture, which I'm sure you do because you've been working on this bill, now's the time.
Don't be shy.
Yes!
Mr. Mayor, it's also MS Awareness Month, so it's a good opportunity for us to be hanging out in all the ways we can.
Hi, sweetie.
Oh, thank you.
Oh, good.
I already love her.
Come on in, guys.
Come on in.
Okay, swish, swish, swish.
Come on up, come on.
Sorry, we're trying not to be...
Are you right-handed?
You're left-handed.
Oh, perfect.
I'm left-handed like my son's left-handed.
I'm going to do a little of each one.
So, Teresa, may I delegate the pin giving out to you?
I will happily give it to the folks who are the masterminds behind this great work.
Can you give this to Councilwoman Mosqueda?
You pin delegator.
And let's say, most popular woman in town.
One looking over at this camera.
And then looking at that camera.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Yeah.
Did you get lunch?
Yeah, I did.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Always good to win something.
Yeah.
All right, right on.
What do you think?
Yes.
Hey, Michael.
Thank you very much for your work.
Oh, thank you very much.
Thank you.
OK, we're going to take a little Q&A.
I emphasize we're a little on that, but we'll take some Q&A.
If there are any questions, I'm going to make sure we don't not answer any questions.
So if we're good, let me know.
Yes, sir?
Yeah, that's a good question.
One of which...
Yes, Steve, please.
Steve Marchese, the director of OLS.
Thanks so much for your question.
So we don't have the hard data on each time that it was used.
I can tell you that from our perspective, when we had circumstances where people raised concerns, we had over the course of the entire lifespan of the pandemic, PSST ordinance, over 240 inquiries in our office.
And we did have settlements when we actually got data that indicated that the platforms were not providing the PSST.
And so, in those settlements, we had a total of about $5.8 million of settlement proceeds that went back to workers because they didn't get the paid sick and safe time, and about close to 21,000 affected workers in those settlements.
So, you know, you think about the numbers of drivers who were involved in the circumstances that they are in in the course of the pandemic.
That's a lot of people.
It's certainly over 21,000, close to 21,000 people impacted by the settlements and probably far many more that were using it that we never even heard about.
I just wanted to note the importance of your question and getting the correct data.
Some of the workers who came and testified talked about how the information was sometimes given to workers inconsistently.
So that's one of the important changes that we've made in this legislation to make sure that all workers are getting the same information on the various platforms in a consistent manner so that we'll have a better indication of how quickly and how often this is being used.
And I again want to thank the team who helped really pull from the experience from 2020 to now.
You heard from Director Marchesi, Karim is right here, from Office of Labor Standards, and Cranable, who's on central staff, I don't think I mentioned earlier, Cranable, in partnership with the Office of Labor Standards, we really tried to pull from that learned experience in COVID to say, we can do a better job of displaying the information, and then I think we'll be able to answer your question more clearly in the very near future.
OK, I'm going to close out for questions after 3, 2, 1, Seattle.
Thank you very much.
you