PORT ANGELES – The Port Angeles City Council this week takes up an ordinance that would require some grocery stores give hazard pay to workers during the pandemic.
Tuesday night, the council will hold a first hearing on the proposed ordinance. A second hearing and possible adoption would take place April 20th.
If approved, grocery stores that employee 500 or more employees across its corporation would be required to pay employees and additional four dollars an hour over the employee’s base pay. Most of the requirements would stay in effect until the emergency declaration in the pandemic has been lifted.
Only grocery stores, not convenience or retail stores, inside the city limits of Port Angeles are covered in the hazard pay requirement.
Last month, the city council directed staff to prepare an ordinance provided a similar one in Seattle was found valid. Legal challenges to Seattle’s ordinance were tossed on March 18th, and the ordnance there has moved forward.
Port Angeles officials say as a code city in the State of Washington, Port Angeles has the same broad legal authority as Seattle does to enact ordinances that the council deems to be for the welfare, protection, and benefit of the citizens.