For low-wage franchises fighting Seattle's new $15 minimum wage? No luck.
The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to Seattle's $15-an-hour minimum wage from franchise owners who say the law discriminates against them by treating them as large businesses.
This was the latest round in the ongoing saga that has been Seattle franchisers' attempts to dodge the new minimum wage. They were unanimously denied a stay by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit back in September, itself an appeal of a district ruling a year ago. With the Supreme Court also declining to weigh in, the franchisers will, for now, still be bound by the same fast-track timeline to a $15 wage that the city's other large employers must follow.
Things aren't all sunshine and roses for workers, however. Even as franchisers in Seattle continue to lose in their fight against new living wage laws, Republican-led states are taking proactive steps to ensure large companies aren't held liable if their franchisers break those laws anyway. Just planning ahead, apparently.