Goldy

Boston-based Boloco is one of a handful of fast food chains that makes a point of paying its workers above the minimum wage. How and why does it do it?

“We were talking about building a culture in which we want our team members to take care of our customers,” Mr. Pepper said. “But we asked, ‘What’s in it for them?’ Honestly, very little.”

So in 2002, when the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour, Boloco raised its minimum pay to $8. It also began subsidizing commuting costs, providing English classes to immigrant employees and contributing up to 4 percent of an employee’s pay toward a 401(k).

“If we really wanted our people to care about our culture and care about our customers, we had to show that we cared about them,” Mr. Pepper said. “If we’re talking about building a business that’s successful, but our employees can’t go home and pay their bills, to me that success is a farce.”

When the company raised its minimum pay to $8, “that was an immediate hit to the P.& L.,” Mr. Pepper acknowledged, referring to the company’s profit and loss statement.

He said his privately held company, unlike some fast-food chains, did not sense an urgency to achieve a 20 percent profit margin per restaurant.

Zeynep Ton, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, said many companies did not pay their employees well because they had a short-term focus on maximizing profits.

During much of the minimum wage debate, proponents (including myself) have emphasized that a higher wage can actually be good for business—increasing productivity and reducing costly turnover, while stimulating the broader consumer economy. And all that is true. But if $15 ultimately decreases profit margins for the businesses required to pay it, so what?

It is important to remember that our current obsession with maximizing shareholder wealth is a late 20th century invention, first popularized by economist Milton Friedman in a 1970 article in the New York Times. It was never a part of classical economics. You won’t explicitly find it in Adam Smith. Through the early part of the 19th century, corporations were chartered to provide a public good. The modern joint stock corporation was never intended as a departure from this tradition, but merely as a means of more efficiently pooling capital, while limiting the liability of shareholders to the sum of their investment. Indeed, read the 1881 mission statement on the founding of the Wharton School, and it sounds downright utopian:

1. Object.  To provide for young men special means of training and of correct instruction in the knowledge and in the arts of modern Finance and Economy, both public and private, in order that, being well informed and free from delusions upon these important subjects, they may either serve the community skillfully as well as faithfully in offices of trust, or, remaining in private life, may prudently manage their own affairs and aid in maintaining sound financial morality: in short, to establish means for imparting a liberal education in all matters concerning Finance and Economy.

That executives might choose to run their corporations with a primary goal of maximizing shareholder wealth is up to them. But contrary to Friedman’s assertion, they are under no legal or moral obligation to do so.

I was sorting through some of the crap in my archives over the weekend, when I stumbled on this:

“If you have the 1 percent saying, ‘Tax the 99 percent,’ and the 99 percent saying, ‘Tax the 1 percent,’ you have a standstill.”
— former WA State Senator Joseph Zarelli (R-Ridgefield), 12/2/2011

That’s right: 99 to 1, and we’re at “a standstill.” Utterly fucking ridiculous.

Under threat of a referendum and/or initiative from so-called “ride-share” giants Uber and Lyft, the Seattle City Council is expected to repeal its recently passed taxi ordinance today, to be replaced by the alleged “compromise” negotiated by the mayor’s office. But the entire premise behind this urgency—that if the council doesn’t act today, the companies will file their referendum—is entirely false.

Tomorrow, King County Superior Court Judge Monica Benton will rule on a taxi industry lawsuit that argues that the Uber/Lyft referendum is outside the scope of the local initiative process because it addresses administrative issues, not legislative ones. Scope challenges can get a little fuzzy, but it’s a pretty strong argument backed up by a ton of precedent. I won’t hazard a guess on how Judge Benton will rule, but there’s a reasonable chance the plaintiffs will prevail.

So given the timing, the council should table today’s proposed action, and wait one day for the court to rule.

If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, then there is no Uber/Lyft referendum or initiative, and the council has plenty of time to readdress the issue in a more deliberative manner. If the court rules against the plaintiffs, then the council still has plenty of time to put an alternative measure on the ballot that gives voter a choice between two competing proposals.

Today’s so-called deadline is total bullshit.

The council spent a year holding hearings and commissioning studies and carefully deliberating the issues in order to come up the ordinance it passed. One would hope it has the balls to wait  just one more day before just rolling over and playing dead.

UPDATE: Yup, they repealed the ordinance: “I think the likelihood of the judge saying that something should not go to the voters is low,” said council member Sally Clark, who is not a lawyer. We’ll see.

1 Kings 11:1-3
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.

Discuss.

I’ve often remarked on the irony that the best daily newspaper journalist in Seattle doesn’t write for a Seattle newspaper. And that still might be true. But the NY Times’ Timothy Egan is beginning to lose my attention:

The election this fall will most certainly return to power the most despised Congress in the modern era, if not ever. The House, already a graveyard for common sense, will fall further under the control of politicians whose idea of legislating is to stage a hearing for Fox News. The Senate, padlocked by filibusters over everyday business, will be more of the same, with one party in nominal control.

Republicans suck, amirite? And yet congressional gerrymandering and an antiquated Constitution that gives tiny rural states like Wyoming the same representation in the Senate as giant California virtually guarantees another Benghazi-obsessed do-nothing Congress. Hopefully, Egan has some ideas on how to fix this tyranny of the minority.

The fastest-growing, most open-minded and least-partisan group of voters will have no say. That’s right: The independents, on this Independence Day, have never been more numerous. But they’ve never been more shut out of power.

Oh. Independents. That old trope. Sigh.

Earlier this year, Gallup found that 42 percent of Americans identified as independents, the highest it has measured since modern polling techniques started 25 years ago. That survey found that Republicans — destined to keep control of the House and possibly take the Senate — comprise only one in four Americans, their lowest share over that same quarter-century span. Democrats were at 31 percent.

Honestly, I’ve never understood the argument that we should hand political control to the people who can’t make up their minds. No doubt there are some Americans who self-identify as independent because they’re too good to sully themselves with party politics, or something, but adopting a political label that stands for nothing is not inherently a sign of intellectual conviction or rigor.

The breakdown is even more unrepresentative when you look at the millennial generation, which, by most definitions, is the largest ever, with about 80 million people. These are the baby boomers’ kids, who bring their life-as-a-buffet view to voting as well. They like choice — in music, food, lifestyle, religion and politics.

Half of all Americans under the age of 34 describe themselves as politically independent, according to a Pew Research Center survey earlier this year, a high-water mark. This generation is also near the highest levels — 29 percent — to say they are not affiliated with any religion.

I suppose one could view this as a sign of a long term trend, or as an indication that it takes longer for young people to make up their fucking minds. It’s a holiday, so I’m not willing to put in the work to research the data, but I’d guess that young people often tend to skew more independent than older voters.

And if you consider California, our most populous state and long a trendsetter for values and politics, the same picture emerges. There, the latest tally of registered voters shows that the fastest-growing segment is the category of “no party.” While the number of these independent voters in California grew by 50,000 people this year, the Republicans lost almost 37,000. Democrats were basically flat, with a loss of 3,000.

Okay. But if you consider California as a trendsetter for values and politics, one might also want to consider that after years of political gridlock and decline, California voters have turned things around by handing Democrats supermajority control of the legislature and the governor’s mansion. California is virtually a one-party state! And it’s working! Voters may be self-identifying as “independent” in greater numbers, but they are voting for Democrats.

The pattern, nearly everywhere but in the states of the old Confederacy, is the same: People are leaving the Republican Party, and to a lesser extent the Democrats, to jump in the nonpartisan lane. The independents are more likely to want something done about climate change, and immigration reform. They’re not afraid of gay marriage or contraception or sensible gun laws. They think government can be a force for good.

Um, then doesn’t this pattern say more about the declining brand of the Republican Party than it does about some ideological swing to “independence?” I mean, there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance in switching parties. The act of doing so acknowledges that one was wrong. It also reeks of disloyalty. Far easier to just proclaim oneself an independent, and then vote for the Democrat, than it is to officially switch parties entirely.

And none of those sentiments are represented by the current majority in the people’s House. The Senate, at least, has two independents, both of whom caucus with the Democrats. In the House? Zero. Remember that the next time Speaker John Boehner says that his members are doing the work of the American people. They’re doing Fox’s work, which is why they’ve had endless hearings on Benghazi, and voted more than 50 times to take away people’s health care, but won’t allow a vote on the minimum wage or immigration reform.

What is it that Egan doesn’t get about our two-party system?

If you thought that the last election — in which 1.2 million more votes were cast for a Democratic member of the House, but the Republicans kept control by a healthy margin — was unrepresentative, the coming contest will set a new standard for mismatch between the voters’ will and the people who represent them.

And how is this in any way a result of a lack of deference to independents? This is a result gerrymandering, pure and simple, that ghettoizes the Democratic vote into urban districts.

Only 12 percent of the general public is defined as “steadfast conservative,” in the latest breakdown of seven political niches done by Pew. But that rises to 19 percent for the “politically engaged.” Thus the Tea Party, though disliked by most Americans, can win elections in red states, and send people to Washington who will govern only for the narrow, passionate base that elected them.

Um, “politically engaged” means actively engaged in party politics. The teabaggers have won influence by seizing control of the Republican Party. Independents lack influence because they refuse to engage in party politics at all.

When you examine the beliefs of independents, particularly among millennials, they lean Democratic. That is, most policy issues pushed by the Democrats get majority support from the nonpartisans. Combining all the categories, Pew put the pro-Democratic cohort at 55 percent, the pro-Republican at 36 percent. But the two party brands are so soiled now by the current do-nothing Congress and their screaming advocates that voters prefer not to have anything to do with either of them.

So that means, what, only 9 percent of independents are truly “independent”—less than the 12 percent defined as “steadfast conservative.” Independents these days are disproportionately Democrats who refuse to self-indentify as such. So why should I care what they call themselves as long as they’re voting for my candidates?

The indies still vote. They went for Barack Obama, twice, but hate partisanship. They’ve soured on Obama for not fulfilling his great promise of forging a coalition that is neither red nor blue.

Way to feed into the Fox meme that this lack of a coalition is somehow Obama’s failure. He tried. Way too often and way too long. And at every turn the Republicans fucked him. Obama would have been a much more effective president had he been more partisan from the start instead being so goo-goo-eyed over that “team of rivals” fantasy.

What to do?

Good, Egan is going to propose some pragmatic solutions.

First, recognize the imbalance. Any democracy is broken when a plurality is not represented in the halls of power. The November contest for control of Congress can’t possibly be a “wave election,” as many politicos will claim, because a near-majority has no slate of candidates.

Okay. Whatever.

Second, get a slate of candidates. Some states now allow “no party” politicians a prominent place on the ballot, so long as they finish in the top ranks. In the age of crowdsourcing, raising the kind of money to fight, say, a Koch brothers-backed Republican is not all that difficult.

You’re fucking kidding me, right? Does Egan understand absolutely nothing about how American electoral politics works? I mean, forget the fact that American history is littered with dismal third party failures. The very nature of independents is that they are not members of a political party! So how the fuck are they going to put together a representative slate of candidates?

Third, don’t check out.

Too late.

The emerging majority is the most racially diverse, politically open-minded, social-media-engaged generation in history. They’re repulsed by the partisan hacks, and the lobbyist-industrial complex that controls them. You see their influence in everything but the governing institutions in Washington. It’s about time that voice is heard.

Whatever, Tim. Too bad you didn’t actually propose any actual reforms that would allow that voice to be heard. So let me help you out.

First of all, we need proportional representation. Imagine how different Congress might look if instead of electing representatives from highly gerrymandered districts, we instead elected them statewide, through a ranked choice voting system? For example, here in Washington, we’d rank our top ten choices, and the top ten vote getters would go to Congress. Betcha that would elect a House more representative of the people as a whole.

Second, we need to eliminate the Electoral College, and elect our president directly through the popular vote. Not only would that avoid another bullshit coup like the one that gave us President Bush, but it would also dramatically transform the nature of our presidential elections, forcing candidates to campaign in all fifty states, instead of just the swing ones.

Third, we need standard election laws and procedures nationwide, so as to prevent the fascistic Republican strategy of voter suppression.

And finally, we need real campaign finance and disclosure reform. If that means a constitutional amendment, so be it. (While we’re at it, we can address that whole corporate personhood bullshit.) If that means packing the bench, I’m up for that too.

Is the American political system broken? No shit, Sherlock! Anybody can see that. But where Egan goes wrong is that he sees the rise of “independents” as some sort of a solution, when in fact what it really is, is a symptom.

Independents are by definition less engaged in electoral politics. They’ve opted out. They don’t caucus. They don’t doorbell. They don’t participate in the hard grassroots work that characterizes the very best of American politics. So of course their voices aren’t heard. Have you ever been to an LD meeting, Tim? Have you ever sat through one of those godawful party platform debates? It’s boring, tedious, frustrating hard work. But imagine if the 36 percent of independents who lean Republican got themselves engaged in party politics, how quickly they’d overwhelm their Tea Party counterparts, restoring some sanity to the GOP?

So instead of just fantastically declaring that we need to elect more “independents”—a label that stands for absolutely nothing—it would have been much more useful had Egan any suggestions for how to get disaffected voters more engaged.

The Washington Council of Police & Sheriffs (WACOPS) has endorsed a “no” vote on Initiative 594, which would close Washington’s “gun show loophole” by requiring background checks on the private sale of all guns. I guess that’s not surprising. WACOPS is a very conservative organization. And while there are plenty in the law enforcement community who support I-594, there certainly isn’t unanimous support for tighter background checks.

More surprising is that WACOPS has endorsed a “yes” vote on Initiative 591, the far-right gun-nuttery initiative that would bar the state from enacting gun regulations stricter than those imposed under federal law. This is more than just opposing I-594 on the grounds that it might inconvenience WACOPS’ own members. I-591 would weaken Washington state’s gun laws, putting more guns on the street, and potentially into the hands of dangerous felons and the mentally ill who might not otherwise pass a background check.

A law enforcement union endorsing I-591 is kinda like a firefighter union endorsing greater access to arson. It borders on crazy.

It’s also not a particularly smart political move for a public employee union with important issues before pro-594 lawmakers. According to their winter 2014 newsletter, WACOPS’ top legislative priority “is to protect and strengthen the LEOFF Plan 2 pension system.” To do this they’re going to need to lobby pro-594 lawmakers like Governor Jay Inslee, Democratic House Speaker Frank Chopp, and the leaders of a potentially Democratic Senate.

As a union, WACOPS primary obligation is to collectively bargain on behalf of its members. It’s hard to see how antagonizing the lawmakers with whom it needs to negotiate could in any way serve this mission.

I called and emailed WACOPS asking for comment, and have yet to hear back. But if they asked me, I’d tell them a smarter move would’ve been to just stay out of this fight entirely.

For the first time since 2006, HA namesake and shameless initiative profiteer Tim Eyman won’t have an initiative on the Washington State ballot.

“We worked really hard, but our signature drive for the 2/3-For-Taxes Constitutional Amendment fell short this year,” Eyman emailed supporters this morning. “We’re just gonna have to work even harder next time,” added Eyman. Also, next time, he might want to actually spend some money on signature gathering, instead of blowing the bulk of the $191,000 he raised through May on personal compensation and fundraising letters. (I’m not implying that the I-1325 campaign was a total scam. But, no, wait. I guess I am.)

Yawn.

Truth is, I don’t write much about Timmy these days because he’s ceased to be relevant. Without the late Michael Dunmire or the crazy Kemper Freeman or the money-grubbing oil industry bankrolling his campaigns, Eyman has long been a paper tiger. He has no organization, no grassroots base of support, and no fundraising list sufficient to raise the money necessary to buy enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. And so this year he didn’t.

It was other people’s money that made Eyman relevant. Without it, he’s nothing. And even with it, he’s not all that.

Over the past 15 years, Eyman has filed dozens of initiatives, qualifying 14 for the ballot. Eight Eyman initiatives have been approved by voters, but of these, all but two were ultimately ruled unconstitutional. Yes, the provisions at the heart of the unconstitutional I-695 and I-747 were reinstated by the legislature, but that’s a testament more to the political cowardice of state lawmakers than to the influence of Eyman.

Indeed, Eyman has been particularly irrelevant in recent years, since being abandoned by his sugar daddies. This is actually the second petition season in a row in which Eyman has failed to qualify an initiative. Last November’s losing I-517 was an initiative to the legislature that was submitted back in 2012. So it’s been a long time since Eyman has run a successful signature drive.

Good riddance.

Yup, Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant is the next Rob McKenna. In that he’s apparently running for governor. As a “moderate” Republican. Whatever that means.

Also, in that he will inevitably lose.

The word from the folks who track such things is that no politician has eaten more chicken dinners at more Republican events statewide than Bryant, making him the only potential GOP candidate currently putting in the time and effort necessary to win the nomination. Good for him.

The logic behind a Bryant candidacy is obvious. No Republican can win the governor’s mansion without getting more than 40 percent of the vote here in populous King County, a bar few Republicans can hurdle. But Bryant has actually twice won elections countywide. And as a low-profile putatively non-partisan port commissioner, he has mostly avoided the stink of Republican Party politics. So far.

No matter. Guilt by association. Bryant is a Republican, and that’s all King County voters will need to know. And yes, that’s perfectly fair.

This is the party that would deny women access to birth control (let alone abortions) because it thinks all women are whores or something. This is the party that is dedicated to the destruction of organized labor. This is the party that has fought tirelessly to deny tens of millions of Americans access to affordable health insurance. This is the party that relies on anti-immigrant dog whistles to rile up its base. This is the party that has made voter suppression the heart of its electoral strategy. This is the party that has championed the causes of privatizing Social Security and ending Medicare. This is the party that has defended Wall Street from the types of regulatory reforms necessary to prevent another Great Recession. This is the party that refuses to acknowledge the science of climate change and evolution. This is the party that blocks all reasonable gun control legislation. This is the party whose political obstruction here in Washington State has left King County Metro on the verge of cutting 600,000 hours of bus service. And I could go on. And on. And on.

Just like Rob McKenna and Dino Rossi before him, Bryant will surely tell King County voters that he’s not that kind of a Republican. But if so, why run as a Republican at all? Obviously, because he self-identifies with the broad set of values embraced by the Republican Party.

And those are values that are clearly out of step with the values of King County voters, and a majority of voters statewide.

I’ve been dipping my toes into a Twitter spat between Inslee spokesperson Jaime Smith and some pseudonymous twit at the state senate “Majority Coalition Caucus” (you know, the Republicans). The MCC started it by tweeting out a link to the latest CNBC rankings, bemoaning Washington State’s low standing as 34th in “cost of doing business,” 38th in “cost of living,” and 24th for “workforce readiness.” Smith responded by berating the MCC’s “cherry-picking,” pointing out that overall, CNBC ranks Washington as the 7th best state in which to do business.

The MCC shot back that one of the reasons Washington ranks so high is because it has “no state income tax.” Which may or may not be true. CNBC’s methodology factors tax burden into “cost of doing business”—a category where Washington ranks poorly. Still, it raises an important point.

Some of the areas where CNBC says Washington scores lowest are in “infrastructure,” “workforce,” and “education”—all areas that could be improved given sufficient state revenue available to invest in them. So the very lack of an income tax that the MCC claims skews our ranking upward, is also arguably responsible for our lack of investment in the areas that skew our ranking downwards. Even the cost of doing business can be negatively impacted by lack of adequate revenue: increasing the time it takes for state and local governments to issue permits and licenses, conduct inspections, or adjudicate civil disputes through the courts.

Disinvesting in government comes at a cost, and much of that is borne by businesses.

So rather than cherry-picking data in order to make Washington State look bad to prospective businesses, the MCC might want to examine rankings like these within their proper context, and consider how the various factors actually interact with each other. You know, assuming the MCC is interested in offering constructive solutions instead of just out-of-context partisan attacks.

Because Paul Allen can: “Vulcan plans to replace Denny Playfield with two towers.”

I suppose Allen has the legal right to develop this property in whatever way current zoning allows. Or, he could gift the land to the people of Seattle for perpetual use as a public playfield. I mean, it’s not like we have many playfields and basketball courts in downtown Seattle. And it’s not like Allen needs more money.

The “Paul Allen Playfield.” Or the “S’chn T’gai Spock Playfield,” if you prefer. Just a suggestion, Paul.

It is such a weird disconnect:

This region must remain competitive, and be the place to do business. That means paying attention to all manner of infrastructure: education, transportation, communications, and public health and safety.

The Seattle Times editorial board urges the region to “pay attention” to public infrastructure, while continuing to be one of the loudest voices obstructing our ability to pay for it.

The ed board has repeatedly opposed measures to raise state revenue to fund education, while dedicating itself to abolishing an estate tax that helps fund schools. Most recently it has campaigned against King County Metro’s efforts to seek new revenue sources, dishonestly attacking the transit agency in a way that can only provide fodder to Republican legislators intent on starving it. And yet the editors have the gall to opine on the importance of maintaining public infrastructure?

Public infrastructure is built and maintained with public monies. If the editors truly believe infrastructure is so important to keeping our local businesses competitive, perhaps they should use their influence to urge local businesses to help pay for it?

They’re fucking insane, that’s what:

Two years ago Kansas embarked on a remarkable fiscal experiment: It sharply slashed income taxes without any clear idea of what would replace the lost revenue. Sam Brownback, the governor, proposed the legislation — in percentage terms, the largest tax cut in one year any state has ever enacted — in close consultation with the economist Arthur Laffer. And Mr. Brownback predicted that the cuts would jump-start an economic boom — “Look out, Texas,” he proclaimed.

But Kansas isn’t booming — in fact, its economy is lagging both neighboring states and America as a whole. Meanwhile, the state’s budget has plunged deep into deficit, provoking a Moody’s downgrade of its debt.

There’s an important lesson here — but it’s not what you think. Yes, the Kansas debacle shows that tax cuts don’t have magical powers, but we already knew that. The real lesson from Kansas is the enduring power of bad ideas, as long as those ideas serve the interests of the right people.

As Albert Einstein is often credited with saying: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” This bit of supply-side orthodoxy has already been tried again and again, and with disastrous fiscal results (for example, the massive deficits that resulted from the Bush tax cuts). Meanwhile the opposite strategy—the Clinton tax hikes—were followed by the longest economic expansion in US history, along with several years of budget surpluses.

Some might argue that Seattle is embarking on a remarkable experiment too, but that’s not entirely true. Washington State has long had one of the highest minimum wages in the nation, yet our economy has outperformed both neighboring states and the nation as a whole. In fact, last year Seattle was the fastest-growing big city in America. As Nick Hanauer recently wrote in Politico: “Fifteen dollars isn’t a risky untried policy for us. It’s doubling down on the strategy that’s already allowing our city to kick your city’s ass.”

Unfortunately, Seattle’s demand-side strategy just isn’t perceived to serve the direct interests of “the right people” (you know, the rich and powerful). So whatever the results here, it’s hard to see the people of Kansas following our lead.

In an effort to repeal Seattle’s historic $15 minimum wage, business-backed Forward Seattle has been gathering signatures for a referendum to put the ordinance on the November ballot. And how are they persuading Seattleites to sign their petition? By lying:

In the audio above, recorded June 27 outside the Target in Northgate, the signature gatherer can clearly be heard telling potential signers that Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage “hasn’t been legalized yet,” that the city council “didn’t officially vote on it,” and that the petition “raises it to $15 an hour.”

These are lies. In fact, the petition is for a referendum that would entirely repeal Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage, and replace it with nothing. That is what the businesses behind Forward Seattle have resorted to: paying signature gatherers to lie to voters about their referendum.

And it’s not just one rogue signature gatherer. Over the weekend I was forwarded this audio from an unrelated source, a compilation of various signature gatherers telling various lies about their petition. Potential signers are told that “they’re going to get to $15, just not so fast,” that “this is not to eliminate it,” and that the petition will “incrementally raise it to $15, not all at once.”

If I lied about Forward Seattle and the shameless lying liars who back it, they could sue me for defamation. But it is perfectly legal for them to hire people to lie about their referendum. Still, if these businesses are so willing to lie to me about their referendum, why should I trust them to tell me the truth about their goods and services? Politics aside, I won’t willingly do business with people I don’t trust, and so I will never spend my money at these businesses again.

While the Twitterverse remains obsessed with the US Supreme Court’s awful ruling in the Hobby Lobby case—that closely held corporations can exempt themselves from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception requirements on religious grounds—a potentially more impactful decision isn’t getting nearly as much attention.

Again, by 5-4 vote split purely on ideological grounds, the court has ruled that home health care workers in Illinois have a First Amendment right to refuse to pay “agency fees” (you know, dues) to the union that represents them. There is little analysis so far online, and I haven’t had time to more than skim the decision, let alone wrap my mind around it, but the conclusion of Justice Elana Kagan’s dissenting opinion (pdf) is probably instructive:

For many decades, Americans have debated the pros and cons of right-to-work laws and fair-share requirements. All across the country and continuing to the present day, citizens have engaged in passionate argument about the issue and have made disparate policy choices. The petitioners in this case asked this Court to end that discussion for the entire public sector, by overruling Abood and thus imposing a right-to-work regime for all government employees. The good news out of this case is clear: The majority declined that radical request. The Court did not, as the petitioners wanted, deprive every state and local government, in the management of their employees and programs, of the tool that many have thought neces- sary and appropriate to make collective bargaining work.

The bad news is just as simple: The majority robbed Illinois of that choice in administering its in-home care program.

Just like in Hobby Lobby, newspaper ledes will likely describe Harris v. Quinn as a “narrow” opinion. It did not overturn Abood, and thus apparently did not drive the final nail into the coffin of organized labor by extending “right to work” rules to all public employee unions. But it also did not extend Abood’s protections to home health care workers in Illinois. And that could potentially have an enormous political impact here in Washington State.

By far the most influential and successful union in Washington in recent years has been SEIU Healthcare 775NW, which organized and represents the state’s 40,000 in-home health care workers. It was SEIU 775 that largely funded the organizing efforts behind Seattle’s fast food strikes and SeaTac’s $15 minimum wage initiative. It was SEIU 775 president David Rolf who co-chaired the mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee, and played a major role in pushing through our new minimum wage law. Other locals may grumble at the assertion, but it is fair to say that SEIU 775 has been the most powerful and effective union in the state.

But if the court’s ruling in Harris v. Quinn extends to Washington State, then SEIU 775 may have just been largely defunded, and the state’s in-home health care workers left without effective representation.

Because that’s how “right to work” works. If workers are given the right to opt out of paying union dues, narrow self-interest dictates that many of them will become freeloaders, benefitting from union contracts without bearing any of the cost of negotiating them. I mean, if you’re struggling to make ends meet on $12 an hour, what are you going to pay first—your electric bill or your union dues? And without the majority of the workers paying their dues, unions wither away into political insignificance, lacking the funds to effectively organize, advertise, or make political contributions. As the union grows politically weaker, its ability to collectively bargain on behalf of its members weakens too. And as the union becomes a less effective negotiator, fewer and fewer members choose to pay their dues.

It is that sort of death spiral that has made it nearly impossible to unionize in “right to work” states.

I’ve asked SEIU 775 for comment and was told that they are still “analyzing the decision.”

Maybe organized labor largely dodged a bullet in Harris v. Quinn. This time. Maybe. But clearly some of our nation’s lowest paid and most vulnerable workers did not. And if this ruling applies to in-home health care workers in Washington the same way it applies to in-home health care workers in Illinois, then it may end up having an enormous impact on local politics, largely defunding what has been the most powerful and effective union in the state.

UPDATE: SEIU 775 spokesperson Jackson Holtz offers the following defiant response: “Home health care workers in Washington will continue to stand with low wage workers throughout the state and around the country in our fight to lift workers out of poverty. Today’s Supreme Court decision will in no way change that.”

Holtz emphasizes that this is “a long and complicated opinion,” and that Washington’s in-home health care system is very, very different from the program and Illinois. “We have a far more robust collective bargaining model through which workers have won benefits,” says Holtz, like health insurance, mandatory training, and certification, as opposed to just wages. “The distinctions between the two programs are too innumerable to go through.”

In other words, their lawyers are still trying to figure out what this all means.

One thing that seems certain is that today’s ruling will surely spark similar lawsuits here in Washington State, attempting to widen the crack provided by Justice Alito’s opinion in an effort to further erode the few legal protections still afforded organized labor.

Proverbs 11:2
When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
but with humility comes wisdom.

Discuss.