As members of the Northwest Carpenters Union have approved a new contract that included employers doing more to help defray the costs of transportation and transit to work sites in the city, City Councilmember Kshama Sawant has unveiled legislation she says will require contractors in Seattle to pay for the cost of parking for construction workers.
“Shamefully, construction industry contractors, who have made billions in profits off the backs of workers, have refused to cover the cost of parking for carpenters and many other construction workers,” Sawant said in a statement on her new legislation and called on her council colleagues to quickly approve the bill.
Sawant’s legislation, her office says, would mandate that contractors reimburse 100% of the parking expenses of construction workers, “many of whom currently have to shell out $100 to $150 a week, or $6,000 a year or more, for parking near downtown Seattle job sites.”
The legislation arrives as the carpenters union forged an agreement with the Associated General Contractors of Washington that included expanding the zone in Seattle in which employers cover parking expenses to include First Hill.
Sawant says the carpenters agreement and agreements with “trades union members, including Sheetmetal workers, Plumbers and Pipefitters, and Ironworkers” on paid parking in their union contracts demonstrates “that contractors can indeed provide free parking.”
The legislative response follows a back and forth political battle between Sawant and union leadership who criticized the socialist council member for what they said was meddling in the union’s multi-week strike. Sawant has said in September she planned to introduce the legislation as the strike continued despite criticism from union leadership.
“The carpenters’ fight is our fight to make Seattle affordable for all. And we know it won’t be easy, going up against the combined forces of the construction industry and the political establishment,” Sawant said in her statement on the bill. “But if our movement can win fully-paid parking, it will be a victory for all working people in Seattle, because it will strike an important blow against the wealthy elites, and show what is possible when the working class builds its collective power to fight back.”
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Ummm.. why can’t they take public transportation like the rest of us. I’m pretty sure if their vehicle is part their work it is provided for them or paid for…
1) Assuming not everyone has access to any or at least time efficient public transportation across the sound.
2) Lugging around heavy and expensive tools on public transportation is likely not an option.
Asking for your job to provide you with parking is not a radical idea. Just about every other industries either provides parking or covers the cost.
Oh, really….. where I work charges for parking and has since before I started 14-15 years ago. I’ve been a bicycle commuter the whole time, but people who choose to drive pay each and every day.
That’s great. That doesn’t make the above statement untrue. Most companies with offices in Seattle provide parking. These folks are also bringing heavy tools with them everyday so jumping on a bike everyday isn’t a valid option. They want parking covered and they’re advocating for it.
Just about every industry – did you do anything at all to confirm that or just make it up…. sorry, but it is unlikely to be at all true. Maybe out in the burbs where you can build your own big lot, but not within Seattle.
Amazon doesn’t provide free parking downtown. The UW charges employees for parking. Hospitals rarely provide free parking for employees in Seattle – Delta Dental, Swedish, Children’s, UW & Harborview all charge employees for parking. The port of Seattle charges employees for parking. The Gates Foundation charges employees for parking. Seattle U charges employees for parking Hundreds of small businesses down there have no parking of their own – and I’m sure they don’t pay employees bills in a private lot… Lots of companies downtown do not pay for parking for their downtown employees – in fact there’s a whole program through the city to reduce SOV commutes – and it’s not optional to participate if you employ over 100 people….. one of the things they highly encourage is – yeah, making employees pay for parking.
Most of the employers you list subsidize transit for workers, and encourage them to use it. This isn’t a practical option for carpenters, as UghWhy mentions. Bringing equipment on a bus is inconvenient for everybody.
Taking the bus is never convenient…. plenty of people have reasons why they’d prefer not to and they have to make the decision to pay for that parking or not. Carpenters are not somehow more special than anyone else. They aren’t more inconvenienced or inconveniencing than say, someone with a big baby stroller. Should everyone with a baby get free parking too? How about students who have backpacks full of books? Taking luggage on the bus is inconvenient – should all of the parking at the airport be free?
Yes, for hundreds of dollars each month. Free, company provided parking disappeared decades ago
Every other industry does NOT provide free parking. On the contrary. I’m not aware of any business that pays for employees to park downtown. Yes, carpenters may have heavy tools. They can carpool and there are typically locked boxes on site. There are all sorts of people who have heavy things that they need to bring to work and they don’t get a pass. If this is so important, the city can build parking garages for the masses and subsidize parking.
Neither city of Seattle nor King County employees who work downtown during the day get free parking. I agree, employers should provide it or at least make it affordable. Seattle and KC garages are $28 and $30 per day. King County employees get a discount, making it $20 per day, but City of Seattle employees do not get a discount.
I thought we didn’t like cars? Haven’t we done as much as possible to restrict their presence throughout the city? Now this?
As I recall, carpenters need quite a lot of large, heavy bulky tools, which would be kind of a pain on the bus or on a bike.
True. But why should the city be involved in determining who pays for the parking of these employees? Advancing an anti-climate change agenda may justify requiring employers to do things like provide Orca cards, etc., but this proposal advances no such public policy. Worse still, it meddles with the recently negotiated Carpenters Union agreement, which resulted in significant wage increases and some increases in parking reimbursement. I am sure those employers will be thrilled to learn that their recently agreed upon terms will be tossed aside by this proposal, and that their costs will rise significantly. And everyone talks about affordable housing. How do you build affordable housing when the city keeps burdening builders and developers with increased costs like these parking reimbursement mandates? Those costs just get passed along to the final product, pushing up housing and tent costs. Not to mention, this is just more grandstanding by Councilmember Sawant, who refused to stay out of this issue even when asked to do so by Carpenters Union leadership.
So…almost everyone pays for parking – for work or even at home if you live in an apartment building. Why is this subset of the voting demographic special? Oh, that’s right – the unions in general (with very few exceptions) are in bed (metaphorically speaking) with Sawant.
Speaking of, I believe the carpenter’s union told Sawant to butt out and not politicize their negotiations.
This is terrible policy to favor one particular group of workers with one particular benefit. If free parking is important for carpenters, their union should negotiate for it.
The union did negotiate parking reimbursement and union members voted to approve the negotiated changes just last week. Not good enough for Sawant, who seizes any chance to put herself front and center.
She has no idea what she’s talking about. What does Sawant know about construction? Nothing. “Contractors made Billions”? LOL. Such a con artist. I cannot believe that even many of the of the insane marxists in D3 still listen to this garbage. Eventually someone in her camp has to tell her to quit lying. I believe she is pushing these outrageous bills because she’s on the edge of being tossed out of office. People are tired of her BS.
so not only is it ok when they put no parking signs up and down local streets (Supposedly to allow truck movent) inconveniencing home owners, apartment dwellers, and local business and then let their workers park for in those spots but now when there is only paid parking, they should get reimbursed when medical workers are forced to pay for parking or take public transportation including doctors and nurses… I don’t think construction workers deserve special considerations.
Talk to your boss or union rep. Seattle children’s pays parking or bus pass. These our things we can negotiate. Doctors are more important then construction workers? Im here to protect the health of the nation.
Doctors at Seattle Children’s pay for their parking……
If the city council wanted to help workers and businesses, they could just waive the street parking tolls for construction workers. Seems like a win win. And what does city council need that parking revenue for anyway? Now that most of the police force is gone the city’s payroll costs are smaller, and clearly there’s nothing substantial being done about homelessness so that should be saving them money too.
seawall, exactly. All of the rules SCC like to impose on others never apply to them. Don’t you dare touch their revenue stream.
Uh, who else gets paid parking? Not me ever.
We already get our parking paid for or bus pass we don’t need you’re help. Construction workers don’t live in Seattle. Why don’t you go help Amazon unionize instead of interfering with already organized unions? Jump on someone else’s strike like you had anything to do with it.
Thanks Gene local 32 plumber.
Let me get this straight. A union carpenter who just negotiated a $45+ per hour job ($90k per year) that may have a single bus ride should get their parking paid for. But a single mom who has to transfer 2 or 3 times times on a bus while earning a minimum wage job of $15/hr ($30k per year) to work as a barista or bartender should pay for her own bus fare? How does that make any sense?
Take the bus- they run every day every six to ten minutes during rush hours. That’s what the rest of us do who work downtown